Statewide law enforcement authorities who came to Albemarle on Thursday to learn about the Thomas Jefferson Area Crisis Intervention Team heard an impassioned speech from a man who has seen a flawed mental health system at work.
Pete Early, a former Washington Post reporter and author of a dozen books, was the keynote speaker. His experience trying to find his adult, mentally ill son help led to the book “Crazy,” a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
“As a father of a son who has mental illness, I am a huge proponent of CIT because I know it can change and save lives,” Early told the crowd at the Albemarle Police Department on Fifth Street Extended.
The meeting focused on the CIT program, which trains officers to effectively deal with the mentally ill. The gathering was the first involving statewide authorities.
Numerous entities are involved in the local CIT program, including the Charlottesville, Albemarle and University of Virginia police departments, city and county sheriff’s offices, as well as the UVa Hospital, Region Ten and several other organizations.
According to Tom von Hemert, who runs the Thomas Jefferson Area CIT, the program’s popularity is growing.
Four Virginia jurisdictions use the program, and close to a dozen are working on implementing it, he said.
Officials from those departments heard several stories from Early, including how he had to lie to get his bi-polar son committed.
He also talked of several clashes between police and mentally ill individuals that ended tragically.
But the retelling of his experience at the Miami-Dade County Jail, which he detailed in his book, and a video of news coverage detailed just how flawed the criminal and mental health systems are.
The jail’s mental health ward on the ninth floor was known as “the forgotten floor.” Officials banished certain guards there to watch over mentally ill inmates. The inmates were held in tiny cells, and rarely if ever let out. Some were naked, others strapped to gurneys. Some had to drink from their toilets.
The way society views the mentally ill and how the system handles them need to change, Early said. Primarily, the system must stop sending the mentally ill to jails and prisons where they get no treatment.
“We need to turn mental illness back into a health issue,” Early said.He added that there needs to be more funding and creative thinking to fix systems tainted by bureaucracies.
This year, in response to the 2007 Virginia Tech massacre, state legislators instituted more than two dozen changes to mental health laws. And Gov. Timothy M. Kaine authorized pouring $42 million into mental health reform.
Early pointed out that before former Gov. Mark R. Warner left office, he said it would take $460 million to fix the state’s mental health system.
The author said law enforcement can have a profound impact on correcting the system, “because you have clout.”
After Early spoke, the area’s three police chiefs — Albemarle’s John Miller, Charlottesville’s Timothy J. Longo and UVa’s Michael Gibson —spoke about the local CIT program, which began in 2005.
All three touted the program for its ability to enhance officers’ communication skills, how it cuts down on time street officers spend processing mentally ill individuals and how it helps keep those individuals from being locked up and instead puts them where they can get needed help.
All three also said there are big problems that need to be fixed.
Von Hemert said a key to the CIT program is how it helps so many government entities work together in handling the mentally ill, instead of simply shuffling them blindly through the system.
He believes the CIT program is a good start at fixing the mental health system.
And he said the word is spreading, to the point where other states and countries are utilizing CIT.
“It’s growing exponentially.”
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