I don't know why you do human rights activism, but I'm following #Jesus, the world's greatest human rights activist! He is against capital punishment (Psalm 102:19-20), prisoner torture (Heb. 13:3), victimizing people (Matt. 25:40), avoidable wars (Rom. 12:18 ), all forms of discrimination (Gal. 3:28), and apathy about human suffering, which is inexcusable (Prov. 31:8). Please give Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ONE MORE "like," and we will have 633. Will you be that one?https://www.facebook.com/AssistancetotheIncarceratedMentallyIll
DECRIMINALIZE MENTAL ILLNESS
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Would you also take a few minutes to "like" Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally ill ("AIMI") at four other Internet networks as you visit? AIMI's Mission Statement is at AIMI at Care2's "Welcome" message.
~Care2
http://www.care2.com/group/aimi
~Google+
https://plus.google.com/communities/108448922585036678747
~Blogtalkradio (Wednesdays, 9pm Pacific, call-in (818)572-2947)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nnia1
All shows are archived for future listening. You can listen now.
~Dog Justice for Mentally Ill (follow this blog)
http://DogJusticeForMentallyIll.blogspot.com
AIMI helps people without regard to religion, race, national origin, wealth or health status, or any other divisive separations. Like Jesus, we are "no respecters of persons."
At least 1.25 million mentally ill prisoners in America and over ten million family members and human rights advocates thank you. Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill ("AIMI") works to decriminalize mental illness in the United States in these seven ways:
(i) We would like to replace criminal prosecution and prison sentences with timely, accessible treatment in psychiatric hospitals or community treatment facilities under assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs, offering subsistence assistance and mandating continuous treatment after prison or hospital release.
(ii) Medicaid insurance should be resumed for inpatient psychiatric treatment. When Medicaid was withdrawn for psychiatric treatment in the 1960's and 1970's, hospitals closed across the nation. Some well-populated areas have fewer than one bed available in a psychiatric hospital or homeless shelter for millions of people.
(iii) We advocate for all police and corrections officers to receive crisis intervention team (CIT) training in order to reduce the brutality and deaths that occur during lunacy arrests.
(iv) AIMI recommends that HIPPA laws be relaxed to enable families to know about their loved ones' treatment (or mistreatment), and become better advocates for their relatives.
The four goals above are covered to a limited degree in a U.S. congressional bill by Rep. Tim Murphy, a psychologist who became a congressman from Pennsylvania. It is called H.R.3717 - the "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act." Everyone who desires to give Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill should urge their congresspersons to support H.R.3717. In addition to those four goals, AIMI puts forth three more more necessary changes:
(v) We want police officers and prison guards who disregard their training and overuse force to be terminated and barred from taking other government positions, prosecuted, and incarcerated. Accountability for abusers will save lives.
(vi) AIMI would like for families to have better support from their communities. We know that people care about others who are undergoing hardships, improving community safety, reducing prison overcrowding and America's prison budget, which is over $90 billion annually. But voters cannot care about conditions they do not know about. AIMI therefore asks media companies to do more to expose health discrimination, comparing society's reaction to mental health crises to physical health crises. Brains are organs like hearts and kidneys. It is wrong to prosecute and imprison people for having sick brains, especially with the high rate of success among people who are in AOT programs. AOT programs reduce homelessness, arrests, incarceration, and hospitalization by over 85 percent among Kendra's Law program participants in New York. Like any other chronic disease, mental illness responds to TREATMENT.
(vii) "AIMI vs. USA" is a planned International Court action to win restitution for people who have been harmed by America's response to mental illness. Everyone deserves treatment for health problem, and nobody should be punished for being sick or disabled. See the next article in this blog entitled "AIMI vs. USA in International Court." In addition to seeking damages for two classes of affected parties, AIMI will make recommendations to the International Court to enforce the six changes listed above.
Mentally ill people and drug/alcohol addicts have suffered much abuse in America. Many people have been subjected to brutal lunacy arrests and incarceration during which they incurred avoidable injuries and deaths. Mentally ill people and drug/alcohol addicts are more likely than others to experience denial of treatment, long-term homelessness, and become entangled in the legal system. Mentally ill people are ordinarily overly charged and overly sentenced in American courts for offenses caused by their common, treatable conditions.
The sentences of mentally ill inmates are frequently lengthened by adding new offenses that happen behind bars, because incarcerating people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, and other serious mental illnesses is not rehabilitative. Imprisonment does not "cure" drug/alcohol dependencies or mental dysfunctions; therefore, behavior caused by untreated conditions usually continues in jails and prisons. Long-term solitary confinement, a common punishment, worsens their brain dysfunctions. No group of Americans should be denied equal opportunities for treatment and equal protection under the law in order to enrich prison investors in government.
AIMI recognizes that victims or their survivors should be compensated by the USA for deliberately withholding mental health treatment and allowing abuses of power that cause injuries and deaths of people with serious mental illnesses and drug/alcohol addictions. "AIMI vs. USA" will be filed in 2015. You or someone you care about may have experienced pain, suffering and loss (even deaths) caused by illegal discrimination against Americans with mental disabilities. If so, please join the class of 100 victims who suffer wrongs because of untreated mental illness, or the class of 100 innocent people who became their victims - people who were assaulted, robbed, raped, or killed by sick people who should have been in treatment as inpatients or outpatients.
We hope you "like" AIMI. Mary Neal has advocated for the mentally ill for ten years and founded AIMI in 2008 at Care2. Thousands of emails and articles and radio shows later, we are gratified to see growing awareness about violations against people with mental illness and drug/alcohol addictions and avoidable violence that sick people often experience and sometimes do when treatment is denied. THANK YOU for support during AIMI's six years of operation. Next, AIMI will become an international NGO and take the battle for human rights further. The struggle continues.
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Thank you for joining AIMI's fight to decriminalize mental illness in the
It would be illegal to keep a dog in a tight space 23 hours a day and gas or Taser him for barking. It would be illegal to put a dog in deadly restraint for control. That happens to mentally ill people routinely in the nation's correctional facilities. What happened to Larry Neal?
Mentally Ill Americans Need Dog Justice. Treat mental illness medically, not legally. Please advocate for your congresspersons to pass H.R.3717 - The "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act." Try to elect people who support human rights and justice for all, not prison investors who have a conflict of interest in voting to decriminalize mental illness in the United States of America, an equal opportunity nation.
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