Postmedia News
Toews
Yet Mr. Toews is not the one-dimensional hanging judge portrayed by his critics. He is concerned about the increasing numbers of mentally ill people who find themselves in prison. “Bringing more and more people into the prison system, if we’re expecting those people to be cured in that context, then that’s the wrong direction,” he said in an interview.
Mr. Toews estimates 29% of all women in the federal system and 13% of men have been identified on admission as having mental health issues, though he recognizes this is a “baseline” and the problem is likely much worse. He attributes the rise to the deinstitutionalization of mental health care in the 1960s and ’70s — one result of which is that only one in three people living with mental illness in Canada access services and support.
“We have to re-examine whether that policy is working. These people were brought into the community to be taken care of there, but provincial governments underestimated the amount of resources dedicated to dealing with those individuals. And when you don’t deal with them on a 24-hour-a-day basis, essentially you’re leaving them vulnerable and they become victims of drug-dealers and other criminals and pimps. Then you’re faced with a problem of people who are mentally ill and on the wrong side of the law,” he said.
The federal prison system is attempting to cope, piloting projects such as the 30-bed intermediate mental health care unit in Ontario’s Kingston Penitentiary. But Mr. Toews said the federal government should not be setting up a “parallel health system” inside prisons.
Not that he’s advocating prisons or other secure institutions should be emptied. “I’m not saying individuals who are dangerous should be out on the streets. I’d have great concerns about Vince Li [the Greyhound bus killer]. He’s obviously mentally ill but for doctors to be talking about this individual being on the streets unescorted, it’s quite another thing,” he said. (Li appeared before a Criminal Code review board in Winnipeg last month, where doctors said he is deserving of expanded privileges at the Selkirk Mental Health Centre in Manitoba.)
But Mr. Toews is calling for provinces to take action to reduce the numbers of the mentally ill who are sent to federal penitentaries, even if he says he is no expert on how this should best be achieved. In effect, he appears to be calling for a re-institutionalization of the mentally ill, perhaps into facilities such as the Selkirk centre.
“I don’t think Canadians are particularly hung up if someone is in a prison or a hospital, if that’s the better institution. What there are primarily concerned about is public safety. If we can assure them that public safety is not compromised by any changes in the system, I think you’d see a very generous spirit,” he said.
However, the re-introduction of institutional care is not the direction in which the provinces are travelling. “All the evidence is very clear that with the right supports in the community, you can get better outcomes,” said Deb Matthews, Ontario’s Minister for Health.
A recent report into Ontario’s provision for mental illness by a blue ribbon panel made a number of recommendations based around improving the integration of the justice and health services. These included individualized health plans for those with a mental illness who have come into contact with the justice system; mental health support for police and the court system; the development of protocols to allow police to transfer people with mental health problems to hospital; and an increase in the number of court support workers.
The Ontario government is working on a mental health and addictions strategy that is likely to take action on some of these recommendations. “We know we need to do a better job,” said Ms. Matthews. She cited an old New Yorker article by Canadian writer Malcolm Gladwell called “Million Dollar Murray,” about an alcoholic former marine who cost the U.S. health and justice systems around $1-million as a result of multiple arrests, visits to the emergency room and jail time. “We can spend a lot of money on someone but not in the right place or at the right time,” she said.
Provinces are making other efforts aimed at diverting the steady stream of mentally ill people flowing into Canada’s prisons. Manitoba has just announced it will follow Ontario and British Columbia by establishing a mental health court. The court will have the power to order treatment, including counselling and admission to hospital.
One unexpected source of inspiration on this file is the experience of Texas, far from soft on crime but a state where crime rates and incarceration levels have tumbled, in part because of a more enlightened approach to mental illness and drug addiction.
The Lone Star state redirected money from prison construction into community treatment for the mentally ill and low-level drug addicts. Prisoners were placed into short-term treatment facilities, where funding was linked to the ability to reduce the number of those on probation who re-offended. The strategy saved the Lone Star State $2-billion in capital costs on prisons.
That’s an option that would make sense in Canada too. Mr. Toews said he was told to expect 1,400 extra prisoners by March 2011, as a result of the Truth in Sentencing legislation. In the event, the federal prison population rose by just 500. There may be no need for many of the extra units the government is planning to build.
Mr. Toews dismissed comparing the United States and Canada as an apples-and-oranges comparison. But the lessons from Texas would appear pretty universal – divert money currently earmarked for prison construction into community supervision, improved integration of justice and health services and create more mental health courts.
Of course, nothing is that simple in a country like Canada, where constitutional silos complicate an already difficult job co-ordinating ministries within the same government. “That’s the problem … I should say, that’s the reality,” Mr. Toews said. Yet the failure to shift resources to meet the problem means we are undoubtedly creating our own Million Dollar Murrays.
National Post
jivison@nationalpost.com
Posted in: Canada, Full Comment Tags: crime, crime rate, jail, John Ivison, Mental illness, prison, prisoners, prisons, tough on crime, Vic Toews, Vince Li
No comments:
Post a Comment