Many of Florida’s Mentally Ill Do Not Receive Treatment in Community, End Up in Jail, Report Says

Jails have become Florida's "de facto mental hospitals," according to a report released Jan. 29 by the mental health advocacy group Partners in Crisis, the Orlando Sentinel reports. The report says that in the last decade, the number of people with mental illnesses in the state's jails has tripled to about 10,000. The "shift" of mentally ill people to jails is a "dangerous, inappropriate and expensive burden on law enforcement," the report adds. Seminole County Sheriff Donald Eslinger, who heads the advocacy group, said, "About 50 years ago, our nation started an effort to de-institutionalize people and increase the services in our communities. Unfortunately, that transition has never been completed, and many Florida citizens have been re-institutionalized in the new asylums of the new millenium: the jails." Eslinger added that people with mental illnesses can be "treated in the community for less money and with better results" than in jails. Institutionalizing a person with mental illness costs about $107,000 per year, compared with only $10,000 per year for "intense services" in a community setting, Eslinger said (Suriano, Orlando Sentinel, 1/30). Partners in Crisis is calling on the state Legislature to allocate $54 million this year and "possibly another" $144 million in 2003 to "expand outpatient mental health services" (Hollis, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 1/30).