Law enforcement too often has to respond to mental health crises in Mississippi.
That was one of the messages witnesses sent to lawmakers during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on mental health Tuesday at the state Capitol.
The hearing could lead to proposals for new legislation in January.
“I don’t know what the answer is. I know the system is down,” said Calhoun County Sheriff and Mississippi Sheriff’s Association President Greg Pollan.
Pollan said that while the rules are different in each county, he knows a lot about how things work statewide from his work at sheriff’s conferences. He said the mentally ill are often left in county jails when “they shouldn’t be there” because they have nowhere to go.
“My perspective on this is as a sheriff running a jail,” Pollan said. “It looks like we are, in general, the mental health facilities in most counties, which is so unfortunate.”
Pollan said law enforcement, which is typically unqualified to deal with people with long-term mental illness, faces the same issues across America.
“I think it’s ironic that the largest mental health facility in this country is a prison. Cook County Jail in Chicago has more mentally ill people than all the others combined. So it’s not a Calhoun County problem, it’s not even a Mississippi problem, it’s a national problem,” Pollan said.
Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Bubba Pounds said he can generally expect there to be someone with mental illness in the jail, a fact he wishes this not be the case.
“I don’t have anyone in jail at the moment, but I may be leaving this afternoon,” Pounds said.
At a Jackson crime hearing before the same House committee last month, Hinds County Sheriff Tyree Jones expressed similar concerns, saying a number of people in jail are awaiting their pre-trial mental health assessments. He spoke of the many detainees who have been waiting for their trial for 10 years, of which about half of those who have been waiting for long periods have mental health problems.
Law enforcement concerns expressed on Tuesday went beyond sheriffs and their deputies holding mentally ill people in jail. They also extended to police work.
“The mental health issue is one of the biggest hurdles we face in law enforcement,” said New Albany Police Chief Chris Robertson.
Robertson said that often when someone is having a mental health crisis, it can be dangerous or seem dangerous to others and “eventually it gets to the point where someone calls law enforcement.” Although there is training available for his officers, Robertson said his department lacks the resources of some others in the state. This complicates the coverage of training costs.
“We’re showing up and trying to handle the situation as best we can. We’re trying to train more officers in CIT, critical incident training. Currently I have two,” Robertson said.
Robertson said the current situation is not helping law enforcement or the mentally ill. He said dedicating resources to mental health could ease that burden on law enforcement and also better serve those in crisis.
“Anything we can do to get more resources and another way for us as law enforcement to help with some of these issues would be better, much better, for them and for us. “, said Robertson. “Without the resources, the police in most communities, or law enforcement in most communities, are the stopgap measure and that’s kind of the way it is.”
Katherine Pannel, medical director of Right Track Medical Group, testified that poorly trained law enforcement interacting with people with mental illness in crisis can spell disaster and should be avoided where possible. One in four people shot by law enforcement between 2015 and 2020 had a mental illness, Panell said.
The International Bipolar Foundation cites similar statistics.
“While 74% of Americans have a favorable view of law enforcement, four in five Americans still think mental health professionals should be the very first responders in a mental health crisis,” Pannel said. “We know that prisons are not the place where patients with mental illness should be housed and treated. However, most patients with mental illness end up in prison during their crisis.”
Panel also said law enforcement officers spend a lot of their time dealing with mental health crises, something they are not trained to do.
“I don’t blame our law enforcement. We are all so grateful for the work they do, but most don’t have mental health training and are so busy doing what they do to ensure the safety of our communities, that they simply cannot continue to take on the responsibility of having to care for mentally ill patients. It is not in the best interests of law enforcement or patients,” Pannel said.
A number of witnesses, including Panel, spoke about the recent creation of the 988 suicide and crisis hotline.
“It’s basically 911 for mental illness,” Panell said. “One of the main goals was to reduce the involvement of law enforcement. As I mentioned before, before it launched, we simply had no choice but to call 911. “
Mississippi Department of Mental Health Director Wendy Bailey said the state has two vital call centers. Last year, she said she answered more than 11,000 calls. With the 988 lifeline in place, Bailey said they expect more than 25,000 this year. She said the centers are managing this volume well. When someone calls 988, the system attempts to connect the caller to an in-state crisis line, before checking for open lines in other states. Bailey said the response rate in Mississippi State was the top 10 in the nation.
Bailey also touched on another place where patients with mental illness often go, other than county jails: public hospitals. She said this should also be avoided, preserving public hospital beds for patients who need them most. She said that ideally local hospitals would be able to handle most cases, transferring patients to outpatient facilities rather than moving them to a public hospital.
“I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you need more public hospital beds,” Bailey said, adding that community mental health centers should be the first point of contact in a crisis. “They are gatekeepers to individuals to make sure they don’t need that higher level of care.”
Representative Sam Creekmore, R-New Albany, was instrumental in arranging the hearing. Afterwards, he said many of the solutions must come from the local level, with community mental health centers, but there are a number of things the state legislature can do to encourage positive change.
“I think we already have a lot of resources here in Mississippi State, but they’re not all working together, and getting it started will make a big difference,” Creekmore said. “You just can’t legislate everything and then follow it. I think one, just the attention we’ve given to it, and then two, maybe we can implement guidelines.”
Creekmore said there are a number of potential bills that could be seen in the 2023 session, which begins in January.
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