"Prison is not only a warehouse for the mentally ill, but an incubator for worse illness and psychiatric breakdowns."
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While the House of Representatives did not dispute the purpose of the bill, many members objected to the $100 million price tag. After much debate, on 6 October 2004, more than a year after the passage of the Senate bill, the House passed an amended version that reduced funding to $50 million. Following a joint House-Senate Committee, the $50 million version was passed by the Senate, and on 30 October 2004, President Bush signed the bill into law.
Despite the reduction in funding in its final version, the Mentally Ill Offender Act was met with a mostly positive response from the mental healthcare community. While some, such as those at the Bazelon Center, a legal advocacy group for the mentally disabled, felt that the resources allocated to the prison system could have been better directed toward community health programs, most groups hailed the act as a coup. Many groups, such as the American Psychiatric Association (APA), predicted that by increasing collaboration between agencies and the government, prison diversion for nonviolent offenders, and in-prison treatment for violent offenders, the act would improve the prison mental healthcare system and decrease repeat criminality.
Despite the optimism of many in the mental health community, the Mentally Ill Offender Act has one more hurdle to cross: funding. Indeed, the act went unfunded last year. While the final version of the bill allowed Congress to appropriate $50 million in grants, the Omnibus Appropriations Bill passed in December 2005, a comprehensive bill that allots money for all existing and new legislation, did not allocate any new funds to the Mentally Ill Offender Act. Furthermore, future funding of the act remains uncertain. In February, the Campaign for Mental Health Reform reported that no funding for the act is proposed in President Bush’s Project Budget of fiscal year 2006. The fate of the act now lies in the hands of Congress, which must decide whether to follow President Bush or to fund the act in the upcoming year.
In 2003 and 2004, politicians of both parties articulated their genuine concern for the state of mental healthcare in prisons. However, as the past few months have demonstrated, bringing about a consensus over one law is not enough. In order for mentally ill offenders to receive appropriate treatment, and in order to decrease recidivism rates, Congress must give voice to this politically powerless group. Not only must Congress fund the Mentally Ill Offender Act, but it should consider systemic changes to the framework of US mental healthcare. As the Bazelon Center has argued, improving community mental health resources may be a crucial first step in decreasing recidivism among mentally ill criminals. Nevertheless, before any general reform of American mental healthcare can begin, Congress must recognize the crime-prevention value of treating mentally ill offenders and agree to fund legislation needed to improve the prison mental health system.
Anuradha Phadke is a sophomore in Morse College