Re Planting Seeds in Prison, February
The work of chaplains like Rev. Brad Shoemaker is very much needed in the prison system. We know that God wants to reclaim them too. The article suggests that there are at least 50 per cent of inmates who have major mental illness. That is a very startling and sobering fact. Following de-institutionalization of psychiatric hospitals some years ago, Health Canada reported that an increasing number of the mentally ill were appearing in prison for crimes motivated by their mental illness. Health Canada and now Statistics Canada report that many of the mentally ill are appearing in prisons because they are not being treated for their mental illness in their communities.
The article states that it costs $75 per day to incarcerate a person whereas it costs $1,000 a day to treat them. I take issue with this statement; not with the numbers as stated but the fact that to state it that way is misleading. All of the other costs involved are not being factored in. The families of the mentally ill who are unable to get treatment for their family member experience a lot of turmoil, grief and stress; this undermines their health which adds to the costs of health care. There is the loss to the victims of the crime committed by the mentally ill person; there is the high cost of police intervention including stand offs, one of which costed $68,000 for one weekend involving 30 police officers. Then there are the repeat police interventions. One man had 69 arrests within a small number of years due to his mental illness. He committed senseless crimes which would have been prevented by treatment.
There are the multiple incarcerations, multiple lawyers’ costs, multiple court costs, the costs of prosecution attorneys, judges and multiple transportations. The other cost is sometimes in lives; the mentally ill sometimes kill and this creates other costs as well. And after the mentally ill have been in and out of prison, incurring tremendous costs on society, they still need to be treated which is what we should have done in the first place. Having waited so long for treatment, their condition worsening, it is much harder, takes longer and requires more medication at far greater cost to make them better, to restore them to a condition in which they can stay out of trouble. That is the monetary cost. The human cost is the loss these persons, their families and their victims suffer.
If people knew the costs of dealing with the mentally ill in this way there would be a huge hue and cry and Mental Health Services would get a lot more support than it does at present.
George Tucker
Thunder Bay, Ont.
