The Statement of Sheriff Ted Sexton
before the
Subcommittee on
Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security
Mr. Chairman, my
name is Ted Sexton, and I am the Sheriff of Tuscaloosa County, Alabama. I serve on the Executive Committee and Board
of Directors of the National Sheriffs’ Association where I am the incoming
First Vice President. I appreciate the
opportunity to share with you some thoughts from NSA and the larger law
enforcement community on the need for S. 1194, the Mentally Ill Offender
Treatment and Crime Reduction Act now under consideration by this
committee. Before I begin, let me say
that we strongly support S. 1194, which passed the U.S. Senate unanimously and
welcome these hearings in the House.
Most of the people
suffering mental illnesses with whom law enforcement officers interact are
non-violent, low-level offenders who are demonstrating signs of untreated
mental illness in public. For the most
part, these individuals pose a low risk of harming others, but act
inappropriately enough to cause members of the community to be concerned. Many of the calls my office receives are
actually placed by family members who are seeking law enforcement help to
control the behavior of someone who is “off their medication.”
It is clear that
without proper training on how to respond to these individuals, law enforcement
officers may not be able to appropriately handle the situation. These contacts have a great potential for
rapid escalation of both threat and force.
Minor situations can easily escalate into a violent confrontation that
jeopardizes the safety of both the officers and the individual.
In many
circumstances, arresting the mentally ill individual is an inappropriate
response. Even if the officer believes
that arresting the individual for a criminal charge is appropriate under the
circumstances, county jails are not equipped to house a large number of
mentally ill offenders. Jails are jails; they are not treatment facilities nor
are they hospitals. Jails ought not be
the treatment option of first resort, but sadly they have become just that
because there is nothing else readily available.
In my own
community, we have seen a steady rise in the number of calls related to
mentally ill individuals. This rise in
the calls for response has largely corresponded to the decline in the
population of large institutions within my community that have traditionally
provided services to the mentally ill.
As these individuals have been moved from an institutional setting to
community-based programs, we have seen a rise in the number of contacts that
officers have with them.
In response to the
increased frequency in calls for service relating to this particular population
of our community, my senior staff and I set out to develop a program within our
office that trains officers to more effectively deal with mentally ill
individuals. The training program provides officers with a better understanding
of mental health issues, and provides a number of suggested options other than
arrest. The training is not limited to
patrol officers who are most likely to come in contact with mentally ill
individuals, but also includes our dispatch officers who field the calls for
service. In addition, we provide the
training to other law enforcement agencies, fire/rescue squads, EMTs, and our
volunteer fire departments. Last year,
the training program was presented to more than 100 officers from the various
agencies last year and currently, there are more than 180 officers scheduled to
receive the training. The Alabama Peace
Officers Standards and Training Commission has recently established this
program as a pilot program for eventual statewide implementation.
Providing this
training to law enforcement officers is a critically important element of
providing service to the mentally ill in our community; but it is only one
of the elements. Providing meaningful
alternatives to incarceration is another, equally critical component. As things stand now, the officer in the field
is often left to choose between the unappealing alternatives of locking up a
mentally ill individual or leaving them on the scene. Right now, there is very little middle ground
and no real other options.
The problems with
these choices are obvious. Simply
leaving the individual at the scene is unacceptable and serves neither the sick
individual nor the public. Taking these
individuals to jail, however, is often just as problematic. County jails are not equipped to handle
mentally ill individuals. There is limited
space in which to house these individuals apart from the general population at
the jail. Of course, they are in jail
because they were causing problems on the outside. Their offensive behavior doesn’t magically
improve in the jail setting. In fact, behavior
often deteriorates in jail. Conflicts
with other detainees or the inability to follow the rules of the facility often
escalate into situations that threaten the safety of an officer or the
individual.
Providing medical
care for these individuals in a jail setting is a tremendous concern as
well. The Tuscaloosa County Jail houses
approximately 600 inmates. At any given
time, roughly 10 per cent of the jail population is on some type of
psychotropic medication. The vast
majority of those are on multiple medications.
In the final quarter of last year, the cost of those medications cost my
office and the taxpayers of
A mentally ill
person in jail receives very basic and limited mental health “assistance”. I would hesitate to call it treatment. The fact is that they receive far less mental
health care than they need and are subsequently released back into society
without either a safety net or a system in place to ensure compliance with a
treatment plan. Frequently, the cycle is
simply repeated over and over again with the mentally ill being arrested after
they have failed to keep up with their prescribed medication regimen.
The still
unresolved problem for us, as for virtually all Sheriff=s
Offices across the country, is finding an alternative placement for those
individuals for whom jail is not appropriate.
As I said earlier, the jail is not designed nor equipped to provide
treatment for the mentally ill. Jails
are designed for the holding of individuals awaiting trial or incarceration of
those serving sentences and should not be viewed as an alternative treatment
facility for the mentally ill. For those
who do require incarceration, placing them in an appropriate setting will help
minimize the time that they actually spend in custody. Additionally, a system for monitoring these
individuals once they are released from jail is also needed to ensure that we
can break the cycle I’ve outlined. It is
a disservice to everyone involved if we cannot arrange some more appropriate
treatment than locking up the mentally ill in jail.
For our part in
Mr. Chairman, I am
ready to take your questions and I look forward to working with you to address
this issue in a way that is helpful to the mentally ill and provides them with
the treatment and services that they need.