Jerome Murdough Radio Interviews: Homeless Vet Baked at Riker's Island

Jerome Murdough, 56, was a homeless Marine Corps veteran who was roasted to death at Riker's Island Jail in February 2014. No New York official or prison officials notified Murdough's family when he expired in a solitary confinement cell where the temperature was over 100 degrees. Murdough was in a section of the prison where inmates should be checked by the correctional officers every 15 minutes, but this was not done.

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI) will sponsor radio shows about Murdough's life and death and discuss how similarly situated Americans might be saved from what Murdough endured: numerous arrests, solitary confinement, homelessness, and avoidable death. Radio shows will be announced at this article. The general public is invited to call our radio programs during live broadcasts to share their viewpoints. Blogtalkradio links can access the live shows as well as recorded broadcasts that are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Sunday, March 23: "Human Rights for Prisoners March" on Human Rights Demand channel (3pm EST Sundays). Mary Neal discusses Jerome Murdough's demise and the secret arrest and wrongful death of Larry Neal, her mentally, physically disabled brother who also perished in jail. (347) 857-3293
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2014/03/23/human-rights-for-prisoners-march

Tuesday, March 25: "Dr. Ansari's Human Rights Updates" on Human Rights Demand channel (1pm EST Tuesdays). Dr. Mustafa is an international human rights attorney and dean of the American Institute of Human Rights. (347) 857-3293
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/humanrightsdemand/2014/03/25/dr-ansaris-human-rights-updates

Thursday, March 27: Mary Neal interviews Bob Darby, a former member and organizer of "Food Not Bombs," author, public speaker, and advocate for the homeless mentally ill. (3pm EST on Human Rights Demand channel). (347) 857-3293, A link will be provided.

Background information regarding Jerome Murdough's death is in the next article,
"Mentally Ill Marine Vet Baked at Riker's Island: AP Blew the Cover-up"

http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/03/mentally-ill-marine-vet-baked-at-rikers.html

Jerome Murdough suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. He was presumably arrested for trespassing and vagrancy when he sought shelter from harsh winter weather on the roof of a building in Harlem. Murdough had endured numerous misdemeanor arrests in the past, as is common among acute mental patients from the working class whose mental illness is essentially untreated.

Murdough would ordinarily visit his family at least once every three months and sometimes more often. He is survived by his 76-year-old mother, a middle aged sister, and a host of other relatives and friends. Associated Press (AP) notified Murdough's family of his death three weeks after he died.

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill recognizes that Murdough's avoidable death is a worst case scenario of what happens when mental illness is criminalized instead of treated like a chronic health condition. Acute mental illness requires continuous monitoring and treatment like heart disease and other physical ailments. Treatment is ordinarily withheld when persons with severe mental illness suffer from anosognosia, which prevents them from realizing they have mental illness. Families are not permitted to commit mentally ill relatives to inpatient psychiatric treatment facilities unless they proved to be an immediate danger to self and others. Even when there are suicide attempts or assaults on family members and others, the mentally ill are usually jailed instead of treated in mental hospitals.

Information about anosognosia is available at Treatment Advocacy Center
http://treatmentadvocacycenter.org/component/content/article/1790

Severe mental illness is a disability that affects many of the 1.25 million mentally challenged inmates in America's jails and prisons. They comprise more than 60 percent of the 80,000 inmates who are relegated to solitary confinement, which further erodes their mental health. It costs at least $168,000 per year to incarcerate each inmate in New York and more for people who require special services like Murdough. Treating the mentally ill in AOT programs, which mandate continuous psychiatric care and provide subsistence assistance, is more affordable and just.

Please join our radio discussions about Jerome Murdough and similarly situated people.

Mary Neal, director
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI)
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/aimi
Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com
Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com

Paragraph 1 repeated: Jerome Murdough, 56, was a homeless Marine Corps veteran who was roasted to death at Riker's Island Jail in February 2014. No New York official or prison officials notified Murdough's family when he expired in a solitary confinement cell where the temperature was over 100 degrees. Murdough was in a section of the prison where inmates should be checked by the correctional officers every 15 minutes, but this was not done.

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 into a deadly restraint chair for control. But this happens to mentally ill Americans routinely in the nation's jails and prisons. What happened to Larry Neal?

Mentally Ill Americans Need Dog Justice. Treat mental illness medically, not legally.

Advocate for U.S. Congress to pass H.R.3717 - Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act

Am I a Bad Person? (Re-published)

Families in Mental Health Crisis, what are your greatest fears about your relatives with serious mental illness (SMI)? Suicide? Police violence? Incarceration? Homelessness? Violent outbursts during which you or others could be harmed? All of these are VALID concerns. Many families who find no help for their relatives with SMI give up and suffer from guilt because of their abandonment. I wrote an article some time ago called "Am I a Bad Person?" about a sister who had given up on her schizophrenic brother. People need and deserve assistance with sick loved ones. Therefore, we must support H.R.3717 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act," introduced by Congressman Tim Murphy. 

This article was emailed to to Stephanie Armour at stephanie.armour@wsj.com, on April 14, 2015, well ahead of the June 9 deadline for public comment regarding the president's conversation about resuming Medicaid for inpatient treatment of mental diseases. Medicaid insurance coverage for mentally ill Americans never should have ended, and it would not have ended had it not been for people seeking increased wealth through private prisons and jails, where over half of America's inmates are mentally ill people who were denied treatment in order to criminalize their mental illness. I encourage everyone who reads this article to also email Armour and support the resumption of Medicaid insurance for mental illnesses. While the nation passed national health care insurance, it is scandalous that people with mental illness would be completely omitted in order to continue extracting prison profits from taxpayers. If you need help composing an email supporting the resumption of Medicaid insurance, please send Armour a link to this article from our "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog, which is
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/02/am-i-bad-person-re-published.html

I wrote: Ms. Armour, please accept the following article in support of the resumption of Medicaid insurance for persons with mental illness in the United States of America. Please confirm receipt by sending a confirmation to each of my three email addresses above (my Internet communication is compromised as I am an advocate for the People who are used for prison profits). Thank you in advance.

Adults with SMI need assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs that provide continuous monitoring and psychiatric care and subsistence assistance for food and housing. They need police officers need crisis intervention team (CIT) training in order to conduct lunacy arrests without violence to the patients or themselves. Like any chronic illness, people with SMI may need inpatient treatment from time to time. H.R.3717 also provides for more inpatient hospital beds by resuming Medicaid insurance for certain mental health care facilities. Join us in giving Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill and also help people who are at greater risk for incarceration due to SMI. Below is a modified version of my article, "Am I a Bad Person?"

Am I a Bad Person?

1)  A woman wrote to WAGblog seeking reassurance that she is not a "bad person" because she gave up trying to care for her severely mentally disturbed brother after their parents died. Letting go is hard. Even when a caregiver feels she has to break ties to protect herself or have a life aside from being a caregiver, one never truly lets go. Love is a binding tie. 

2)  People who discontinue caring for an adult with acute mental illness should not feel guilty. It is very challenging to protect acute mental patients from themselves and save them from being victimized in a world where they are considered least. Our system too often withholds treatment until AFTER crimes, then imprisons rather than hospitalize sick people. For some families, this creates an element of danger. That was the case for Theresa. Oregon built a new mental hospital since Theresa's horrible death at her brother's hand.

3)  My mother struggled with my brother, Larry, for many years after he was "deinstitutionalized" along with hundreds of thousands of acute mental patients who were released in the 70s. Larry was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia before puberty following a mumps infection that apparently went into his brain. He lived mostly in a mental hospital for over 20 years. His trial visits home never worked out for long, yet he was eventually evicted when Medicaid became unavailable for psychiatric inpatients. For over a decade after hospital release, Larry resided with his family. Larry was non-violent, but his actions put him in serious danger. We were unsuccessful in attempts to have Larry re-committed except for short-term crisis intervention.

4)  One day, Larry was walking by a neighbor's home and heard a baby crying. We have many nieces and nephews. Larry thought the baby was asking him for comfort, so he climbed into the nursery window to attend to the baby. Luckily, the homeowner did not panic and kill Larry. Can you imaging going into your baby's nursery and seeing a strange-looking man you don't know rocking your child? The baby was safe with Larry. He was not as delusional as the Arizona man in this article: "Murder for Christmas: Schizophrenic Man Bludgeoned Youngsters." After the nursery incident, Larry was sent to the hospital briefly.

5)  Larry's family could not protect him from the situations his mental imbalance created after hospital release made him "free." It was particularly hard for my mother to let go, but she was getting old and was very concerned for Larry's safety. Our congressman helped to arrange for Larry to become a ward of the State and live in a care home. Unfortunately, care homes have minimal rules. Patients are not forced to take their meds and they can come and go as they see fit. Sometimes, patients who are in care homes really need to be in a hospital, like the man who stabbed a New York baby while the child's nanny took her on a walk: www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/nyregion/08baby.html - but the hospitals are closing.

6)  Making Larry a ward of the State was not the solution that we hoped it would be. Larry was not dangerous to others, or he might have been re-committed. He had a toothless grin and a song, if you had time to listen, for everyone he saw. Then he would recite long historical documents or Bible verses very loud. He would immediately share the money we gave him, then beg others for handouts, which is illegal. According to the law, Larry should have qualified for hospitalization because of the danger he was to himself, but that did not happen. He was a "frequent flyer" in Memphis Shelby County Jail, which would call his family or social worker when he was arrested for misdemeanors, such as public nuisance charges. That happened in July 2003, when he spat on a nurse who was taking Larry's blood pressure. He said the cuff was too tight, and his mind had not progressed much beyond age 8 when he initially contracted mental illness.

7)  Incarceration is a usual outcome for people with advanced mental illness like Larry. He suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Prisons have replaced hospitals and community treatment centers for mentally challenged people in America. There are now 1.25 million mentally ill people incarcerated, and they comprise 60 percent of inmates in cruel solitary confinement. Gas, restraint chairs, and Tasers are used to control them. Some are killed. Once arrested, mental patients often get time added because they do not understand or lack the wherewithal to obey the correctional facility's rules of behavior. Sometimes, prisons keep them just because. That happened to Nick Sauve, Terrell Scott, and many others. Some are warehoused in jails and prisons for many years with trials denied.

8)  Larry Neal felt that he had a schedule to keep that involved walking about 10 miles a day. Once he got hit by a car crossing a major street. As soon as he was able, Larry was back on his route. He would begin by having breakfast with one of our brothers. From there, he would walk several miles to McDonald's where they allowed him to sit for hours over a few cups of coffee. Then he would go to a recreation center that may have been especially for acute mental patients like Larry, but it is closed now. In any case, he would go there and watch TV, shoot pool, etc. 

9) The center Larry frequented had an attendant to monitor the patrons, so Larry felt safe there despite his paranoia. The problem is that Larry would walk those 10 miles to keep his "appointments" without dressing properly for the winter. He got pneumonia repeatedly. Once, when he was just out of ICU for pneumonia, he left the hospital and walked about 5 miles to have his usual breakfast with our brother wearing only a hospital gown (the back was open) and paper shoes in sub-freezing weather.

10)  At one point, Larry was transferred to a home much further from his "route," but he walked approximately 20 miles round-trip to keep his imaginary appointments. Larry's hospital bills for numerous bouts of pneumonia and being hit by a car, plus his misdemeanor arrests for inappropriate behavior were probably no less expensive than hospital commitment. Taxpayers saved no money when mental illness was made a crime. Taxpayers pay from $15,000 to $168,000 annually to warehouse each inmate, and up to three times as much for those who are in solitary confinement, like death row prisoners are and inmates with acute mental illness and other diseases. Lifelong schizophrenic patient Jeremy Smith has been in "the hole" for years, and he recently faced life in prison for talking rudely to a prison guard. He was accused of making a "terrorist threat."

11)  Approximately 1 in 5 Americans has some form of mental illness, and most people function well under treatment like people with any other chronic health condition, such as diabetes. However, some acute patients need constant supervision in a facility with a trained, compassionate staff. Patients in that category are not necessarily dangerous, but they endanger themselves. Larry asked a lady for a dollar one day, and the way he phrased it - "Gimme a dollar, lady. Come on, I know you've got a dollar; gimme a dollar" - made her feel like she was being robbed. Things like that get mentally ill people arrested. 

12)  Sometimes mentally ill people are picked on by bullies in their communities who find their conditions amusing. One homeless mentally ill veteran in California was doused in gasoline and set afire. He burned to death. In 2014, a man shot two homeless men to death as they slept on the ground in Atlanta. Homelessness is a usual outcome for acute mental patients after their families give up trying to keep them. Consider a case in Florida when one homeless mental patient killed another. Violence on the homeless often involves a mentally ill victim.

13)  The availability of hospital space for non-violent mental patients became pretty much non-existent after Medicaid funding for inpatient treatment ended decades ago. Hospitals across the country downsized dramatically or closed altogether. Although Larry would be sent to the hospital to be stabilized during a crisis, he never stayed over a month, and usually much less. Hospital closures continue nationwide. Meanwhile, our prison population swells as acute mental patients eventually do something to qualify for arrests - offenses from simple vagrancy to gruesome murders. DOES THIS YOUNG WOMAN BELONG IN PRISON? SEE a film I call "Bipolar Crisis on Atlanta MARTA Train" at this link:
http://youtu.be/4Doe8VNlKaA

14)  Approximately 1.25 million mental patients are imprisoned today, which means there is no savings for taxpayers in punishing sick people for having mental dysfunctions rather than hospitalizing them or providing community-based care. But it is much worse for the patients to be imprisoned rather than hospitalized, as police officers lack the training and some lack the temperament to be psychiatric caretakers. Consider how my brother died under secret arrest, described in his website at the following url:
http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/main.html 

15)  Remember Tim Souders' death in a Michigan prison while on a restraint table for four days without food or water. Maybe they forgot him. Souders' death is presented in this television documentary - a "60 Minutes" presentation:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/08/60minutes/main2448074.shtml - 

16)  In Tennessee, Frank Horton's life was spared by a benevolent guard. Frank had been in solitary confinement cell for nine months without medical or psychiatric attention, exercise, or hygiene. The floor to his solitary prison cell was covered with feces and urine, and he likely would have died if the guard had not reported his dangerous circumstances to the Department of Health.

17)  Mental hospitals are sorely missed. Many prisoners suffer since mental illness was criminalized. It does not have to be this way. It is less expensive to treat sick people than to punish them for having a common health condition, and many can be restored to wholesome lives. Please join Treatment Advocacy Center, AIMI, and other mental health advocacy organizations in supporting H.R.3717, a congressional bill to do the following on a limited basis:

    (1) enact assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs that mandate continuous treatment and give subsistence assistance; 

    (2) provide for crisis intervention training for police officers and prison guards to avoid violence against the mentally ill; and 

    (3) resume Medicaid insurance for mental hospitalization. 

18)  There are other provisions of H.R.3717. Read them all online. PLEASE ASK YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO SUPPORT H.R.3717 - "The Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" - which was introduced by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA) in December 2013. He is a former psychologist who understands mental illness.

19)  We sympathize with the sister who wrote the comment at WAGBlog about having to give up being caretaker for her brother. The burden on families is great. That is why I feel certain that once the 10 million family members and human rights advocates know about H.R.3717, they will gladly support the bill. We must let Americans know that an alternative to criminalizing mental illness is available. I hope you will help by sharing the news. There is opposition to the bill that would affect private prison profits, so it will take effort on our parts. H.R.3717 could possibly save billions of dollars annually on America's prison bill, which is currently around $100 billion per year. Prison investors' earnings are compounded by possibly hundreds of billions more from prison slave labor, which is sold to major corporations and deprives "free" Americans of jobs at minimum wage, union scale wages and benefits. When I checked, H.R.3717 had 77 co-sponsors who were Republicans, but only 38 co-sponsors were Democrats (115 total). 

20)  Study the states that have representatives refusing to co-sponsor H.R.3717, and notice if mentally ill people are brutalized or killed under the color of law in those states (by untrained police or correctional officers in jails and prisons). No accurate count is available, but "Killed by Police (dot) net" is a website that attempts to inform the public of police killings by using news reports. Be aware of the fact that many deaths by police are censored; therefore, whereas "Killed by Police (dot) net" is more accurate than the FBI tally, the true number of casualties is unknown: http://killedbypolice.net

21)  In addition to police killings, many mentally ill people die in custody by murder, neglect, and natural causes. Those deaths are NOT reported on "Killed by Police (dot) net," and some of them may not be reported anywhere at all. For instance, Larry Neal's secret arrest and his murder, which happened after 18 days of incarceration, remain America's secret. Christopher Lopez was dead for 17 months before San Carlos Correctional Facility in Colorado reported his demise to the Department of Health (Lopez was another mentally ill inmate). Brenda Anderson, a released prisoner from Texas, reports that the murder of a female mentally ill inmate named Mary was not reported to her family until they tried to visit her on Mother's Day, weeks after her demise.

22)  Acute mental illness affects all people in our society whether or not someone with that condition is a relative or close friend. Acute mental illness is the only health disability that is criminalized and punishable by imprisonment, and that usually happens AFTER a patient has proved to be a danger to self and others through some violent act. Save money, increase community safety, and restore hundreds of thousands of Americans to more wholesome lives by helping to pass H.R.3717. Please read H.R.3717 and review more information about its status, co-sponsors, etc., at http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-bill/3717

23)  Subcommittee hearings were held on H.R.3717 on April 3, 2015. While we hope for passage of that bill, we must also recognize that there are individual mental patients and families who have already suffered irreparable damage by the system's callous disregard for mentally disabled people's civil and human rights. Throughout the nation, families suffered Legal Abuse Syndrome (LAS) from their vain efforts to extract their vulnerable loved ones from the justice system. Mental capacity diminished for many mentally ill people who were held in solitary confinement torture for years, and some for decades. Others have wandered the streets homeless, dodging arrest for vagrancy, eating out of the trash. Thousands were killed. H.R.3717 proposes positive changes for hereon, but what of those who have already been irreparably harmed? That is where "AIMI vs. USA" lawsuit in International Court will help, if the lawsuit is successful. 

24) LEGAL ABUSE SYNDROME (LAS) is a form of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It is a psychic injury, not a mental illness. It is a personal injury that develops in individuals assaulted by ethical violations, legal abuses, betrayals, and fraud. In the law, people with mental disabilities are protected from the brutality and murders they suffer by the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), the Civil Rights Act, the Convention Against Torture, and Executive Order 13107, implementing human rights treaties. Families are shocked and stressed when they learn that those protections are not actually applied to their mentally challenged loved ones, which is fraud. Protracted litigation leading to LAS often results in physical as well as psychological damages to the affected parties, especially to mothers of mentally ill teens and adults who are jailed rather than treated. 

25)  Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill plans to file "AIMI vs. USA" in 2015 to win restitution for mentally ill Americans and immigrants who were negligently and/or cruelly treated under the color of law in America. Health discrimination causes great pain and suffering, and it yet continues throughout the country. "AIMI vs. USA" is suing only for money, much of which will be used to compensate up to 100 mentally ill claimants for their negligence and abuse and compensate their family members or next friends who suffer from Legal Abuse Syndrome or who are due compensation for wrongful deaths. 

26)  Most mothers like mine take their adult children's mistreatment particularly hard. For instance, Terrell Scott's mother had a heart attack when she was only in her 40's due to the stress she endures trying to prove her son's innocence and extract him from prison. Scott has been incarcerated nearly six years but is denied a trial in the Pennsylvania. Holly Alston has suffered through her son's rape, his suicide attempts to escape being treated worse than a dog, his exposure to HIV virus, as well as Scott's severe beatings by other inmates, which blinded him in one eye, dislocated his jaw, and rendered him without hearing in one ear. These injuries were incurred in beatings which prison guards allegedly ignored. 

27)  Some mothers nearly die from Legal Abuse Syndrome stress, and most are unable to give their spouses and younger children the kind of home they would have if not for their older children's mental illness being criminalized rather than addressed like other chronic health conditions with treatment and not punishment. Incarcerating the most vulnerable member of one's family is hard on everyone, and killing sick people leaves many grieving survivors, probably most of whom have never been compensated for wrongful deaths. My family never was.

28)  People who have been victimized by untreated mentally ill people are also invited to join "AIMI vs. USA," like the families of six people who were killed in Santa Barbara, California after parents reported to police that their son was dangerous. "AIMI vs. USA" also accepts claimants who are police officers' survivors. For example, Olga Garcia's son, Robles, was incarcerated for 14 days in Texas, during which time guards refused to administer his psychotropic meds. Then he was beaten and released from jail in physical pain as well as psychiatric crisis. The sudden withdrawal of his medication negatively impacted Robles. Before that arrest, Robles was a happy young father who had just completed barbering college. But within 12 hours of jail release, Robles shot and killed a police officer. Robles' mother is a claimant to "AIMI vs. USA," and the family of the slain police officer can be, also.

29) A Wall Street Journal article reports that the United States President is interested in recieving public comments regarding resumption of Medicaid insurance for psychiatric inpatients, which would make it possible for mental hospitals to have more beds, and fewer people would be incarcerated or killed during lunacy arrests for lack of proper psychiatric treatment. Write to Stephanie Armour at the Wall Street Journal before June 9. Please email your support for resuming Medicaid to treat mental illness and drug addictions at the same rate as physical health problems. http://www.wsj.com/articles/obama-administration-proposes-rules-for-medicaid-mental-health-parity-1428362172

30)  Thanks in advance for all that you do to help give Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill and reduce the risk of arrest for vulnerable persons. A life is a terrible thing to waste. We need success for H.R.3717 - "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" to help restore sick people to wholesome living and success for "AIMI vs. USA" in order to compensate people for damages already incurred. Sharing the information in this article is one way to help give "Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill" and those at greater risk of incarceration due to their "illegal" health condition, for which most of them were denied treatment prior to their alleged offenses.

31)  Our sincere regards go to the sister who commented at Pam Wagner's blog about  abandoning her role as the caretaker for her schizophrenic brother. Many people who love their sick relatives find themselves in similar situations - having to give up on a loved one for their own protection. It is a grossly unfair predicament that would be unnecessary if AOT programs and Medicaid insurance for psychiatric inpatients were possible throughout the country. Please visit Pam Wagner's blog today for moving visual art, poetry, and articles revealing the challenges of schizoaffective disorder at the url, http://pamelaspirowagner.com/

Blessings!
Mary Neal, Director of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
~Blogger

http://AIMI-HumanRights.blogspot.com

~Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/AssistancetotheIncarceratedMentallyIll

~Care2

http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

~Google+

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/108448922585036678747

Phone 678.531.0262 or (571)335-1741

MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com
and

AIMI@HumanRightsDemand.com
(If I get your voice message or email, I will respond within 24 hours; if not, please try again. Communication is challenging around these issues.)

*******

Thank you for giving Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill.

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? Why are we still asking that question after nearly 12 years? Cover-ups regarding the wrongful deaths of mentally challenged inmates and free people in the USA are common and vile.

Mentally Ill People Deserve Dog Justice!

http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com

This article contains 4 introductory, unnumbered paragraphs, 31 numbered paragraphs, 14 urls and 3 email addresses. I count them because unlike lobbyists for big corporations, YOUR representatives -- human rights advocates -- are censored in the United States of America.

Repeat of Paragraph 1: Families in Mental Health Crisis, what are your greatest fears about your relatives with serious mental illness (SMI)? Suicide? Police violence? Incarceration? Homelessness? Violent outbursts during which you or others could be harmed? All of these are VALID concerns. Many families who find no help for their relatives with SMI give up and suffer from guilt because of their abandonment. I wrote an article some time ago called "Am I a Bad Person?" about a sister who had given up on her schizophrenic brother. People need and deserve assistance with sick loved ones. Therefore, we must support H.R.3717 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act," introduced by Congressman Tim Murphy.

AIMI H.R.3717 Broadcasts Feb 12 and 19

The people who are most discriminated against in the United States are not distinguished by their race but by their mental health status. The mentally ill are the only class of people who are arrested for conduct arising out of a common, treatable health condition. Over half of the nation's incidents of police violence and arrests happen to mentally challenged people. See the graft below by Mother Jones, which shows the percentage of inmates with mental health problems as of 2004 in federal prisons, state prisons, and local jails:

Help will soon be available if H.R.3717 is passed by the U.S. Congress. Please join us on February 12, 2014, on the "Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill" Blogtalkradio show to discuss how H.R.3717 "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act" would assist acute mental patients, their families, communities, and all taxpayers. Please call-in at 9pm PST (818)572.2947. Among other things, H.R.3717 provides for (1) inpatient psychiatric treatment using Medicaid insurance, (2) special training for police officers, which should reduce injuries and deaths during lunacy arrests, (3) a national awareness campaign to reduce the stigma associated with serious mental illness, and (4) implementation of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs, which mandate outpatient psychiatric treatment for participants and provide subsistence assistance for food and housing. AOT programs reduce homelessness, arrests, incarceration and hospitalization by over 80% among program participants. 

AOT programs, which were certified by the U.S. Department of Justice in March 2012, would significantly reduce America's prison costs, currently estimated at $75 billion per year. "Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill" members advocate for every mentally ill inmate and patient exiting correctional institutions or mental hospitals to be ordered into AOT programs for continued psychiatric treatment. This is how our most vulnerable citizens can avoid homelessness, prison, and death. The fact that AOT programs already proved to reduce arrests and incarceration indicates that AOT programs significantly improve community safety, relieve prison overcrowding, and help restore people suffering from acute mental diseases to more wholesome living.

H.R.3717 was introduced by Rep. Tim Murphy (R-PA), formerly a practicing psychologist. The mental health bill presently has 34 co-sponsors, only 4 of whom are Democrats. I would like for someone to theorize or explain why more Democrats are not cosponsors of H.R.3717. I posed the question to the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) in tweets recently (@koffietime) and plan to seek a reply directly from CBC members in my district. Support for H.R.3717 from the CBC seems warranted because deaths and injuries by police officers happen frequently to African Americans with acute mental diseases.

The H.R.3717 radio show will be archived at Blogtalkradio and remain available for public listening. Please join the conversation at 9pm PST on February 12, 2014 (10pm Mountain, 11pm Central, and 12midnight EST). Call (818)572.2947 or join by computer at
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nnia1/2014/02/13/assistance-to-the-incarcerated-mentally-ill Everyone with an interest in mental health law is invited to discuss H.R.3717 with us on February 12. We will continue the discussion on February 19.

Please read H.R.3717 and review more information about its status, co-sponsors, etc., at
http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th/house-bill/3717 . See also H.R.401 "Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Act of 2013," introduced by Rep. Richard Nugent (R-FL).

JAIL IS THE LAST THING MENTAL PATIENTS NEED ... AND TOO OFTEN, IT IS THE LAST THING THEY EXPERIENCE. Please join our quest to decriminalize mental illness in America. No one should be punished for having a disability. Please contact your congressional representative today and demand that hospitalization and outpatient treatment replace incarceration for the mentally ill people in your state. Support H.R.3717. http://www.house.gov/writerep

Please assist us by sharing this invitation and/or the url to our radio broadcasts with mentally ill people and their families as well as prisoner activists, mental health organizations, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, lawyers, congresspersons, students, law enforcement officers and administrators, and others who may have input or an interest in mental health law in the USA. Thank you for helping to give ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL. 

Mary Neal, director

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI)

MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com

678.531.0262

Seeking Dog Justice for America's Mentally Ill People

Death by Police - Kenneth Sprankle, St. Pete

ST. PETERSBURG — Kenneth Robert Sprankle was convinced he would find a cure in the Florida sun. He moved here several months ago from Pennsylvania and loved the beaches. But, as he'd done for years, he struggled to manage his mental health. The end came Monday, when the 27-year-old bipolar schizophrenic smoked some spice and began chasing people downtown with an ax before being shot and killed by police. (Tampa Bay Times)
 _____ 
Sprankle's tragedy proves that gun control is unlikely to protect Americans from avoidable mental health crises. Only removing barriers to timely psychiatric treatment, improving access to mental hospitals, and instituting assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs can address Americans' mental health needs and enhance community safety. See the ABC video about Sprankle below.

Was shoot-to-kill an appropriate response by police? Would Sprankle have been temporarily disabled by Taser? Should police be equipped with guns loaded with fast-acting tranquilizers for circumstances such as this? Could Sprankle have been taken into custody by specially trained police officers? Homicides by police involve mentally ill victims in at least 50% of the cases, according to Treatment Advocacy Center - "Justifiable" Homicides by Law Enforcement Officers 
http://www.tacreports.org/justifiable-homicides

Kenneth Sprankle was the fourth person shot to death by St. Pete PD this year, according to an ABC report.

"This will happen again and again and again until we find enough places where people can take their neighbors and relatives that may not need to be hospitalized," St. Pete City Councilman Karl Nurse said.

Councilman Nurse is not unlike police officers this writer polled, 100% of whom agreed that mentally ill people do not belong in prisons and jails.

______

References re Kenneth Sprankle: 
ABC
http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/region_south_pinellas/st_petersburg/st-pete-police-officer-involved-fatal-shootings---4-out-of-6-suspects-with-mental-health-issues
Tampa Bay Times 
http://goo.gl/QQDrRT

GUN CONTROL THIS AX

Mary Neal

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/aimi

Wrongful Death of Larry Neal
http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com

Dog Justice for Mentally Ill
http://DogJusticeforMentallyIll.blogspot.com

Paragraphs 1 and 2 repeated:
ST. PETERSBURG — Kenneth Robert Sprankle was convinced he would find a cure in the Florida sun. He moved here several months ago from Pennsylvania and loved the beaches. But, as he'd done for years, he struggled to manage his mental health. The end came Monday, when the 27-year-old bipolar schizophrenic smoked some spice and began chasing people downtown with an ax before being shot and killed by police. (Tampa Bay Times)
 _____ 
Sprankle's tragedy proves that gun control is unlikely to protect Americans from avoidable mental health crises. Only removing barriers to timely psychiatric treatment, improving access to mental hospitals, and instituting assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs can address Americans' mental health needs and enhance community safety. See the ABC video about Sprankle below.
______

This article contains two photos, one video, and six links. Unfortunately, advocacy for mentally ill persons is censored; therefore contents to some articles are listed. It would negatively impact prison investors to decriminalize mental illness and treat people's psychiatric conditions in hospitals or community care programs instead of awaiting an opportunity (crime) in order to incarcerate them. In fact, advocating to decriminalize mental illness has made me America's most censored person. If you find the links, video, or photos have suffered tampering, please comment below or email me at MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com . 

DOG JUSTICE NEEDED FOR AMERICA'S MENTALLY ILL

DogJusticeforMentallyIll Blog Welcome

Hello and welcome to all families of mentally ill Americans who are wrongly incarcerated for offenses that arose from mental health problems or who face an increased risk for imprisonment due to a common, health condition. Greetings to everyone who has been victimized or have/had relatives and friends who were abused or killed by extrajudicial police violence. This human rights advocate empathizes with you because of the murder under secret arrest of Larry Neal in 2003 and oppression to keep his death covered-up http://WrongfulDeathofLarryNeal.com . I spoke about it on the brief video embedded below, filmed by Press TV in 2012, which is also at YouTube link http://youtu.be/584tgKJwobY . The video is about systemic racism in America, but acute mental patients, especially those who lack wealth, are at risk no matter what their race is. Search this blog for the video of a Caucasian, Kelly Thomas, being killed by police in California.

It is painful to lose relatives to violence or avoidable deaths and injuries caused by negligence. Yet that is a danger everyone in a society faces when acute mental patients lack proper treatment and subsistence assistance. Assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) programs have proved to reduce homelessness, arrests, hospitalizations and incarceration by 85% or better among program participants in New York when compared to their experiences three years before joining an AOT program that mandates psychiatric treatment and provides subsistence assistance.

I believe that together, you and I can Change things. Homelessness, prison, and death must no longer be America's answers to poverty and mental illness. Acute mental patients do not usually vote for politicians who pass laws and decide budgets that have tremendous impact on their lives, but their millions of relatives and friends do. Every area should have police officers trained to deal with mentally challenged people without violence as well as sufficient hospital beds for inpatients for crisis intervention and for long-term care. Mental ill people in America who require containment must become hospital inpatients rather than prison inmates. Mental illness is like physical diseases such as heart trouble or diabetes in that it requires continual monitoring by health care professionals. That is why every community also needs active AOT programs to promote community safety, reduce its prison budget, and help acute mental patients be restored to wholesome living. The good news is that caring for the mentally ill saves money. Treatment Advocacy Center reports:

A study of mandatory outpatient treatment costs published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry found that use of assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) can vastly reduce overall costs of mental health services for persons with serious mental illness.

“Common sense has always argued that treating people with severe mental illness is a lot cheaper than arresting, jailing and/or hospitalizing them – not to mention more humane,” said Doris A. Fuller, executive director. “Now Duke University and its research partners have produced the numbers to validate it.”

I believe most Americans are decent people who would care about marginalized psychiatric patients and vote for public officials who are committed to improving their conditions. However, people can only care about conditions that they know about. Articles in "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" blog are published to inform and recruit the general public to help give Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill. You assist in this justice quest every time you share an article or video from this blog with your online networks. You are invited to "follow this blog" by using the widget in the upper right margin and read more articles listed in the blog's index. Over a million incarcerated mental patients and families of murdered and abused sick people thank you for your concern.

Animal rights laws prevent dogs from being treated like my brother Larry Neal and other psychiatric patients in this blog were. Everybody deserves at least "Dog Justice."

Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill advocates at

Blogger - Dog Justice for Mentally Ill

http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/

Care2 

http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

Read our Mission Statement at the Care2 group's "Welcome" strand

Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Assistance-to-the-Incarcerated-Mentally-Ill/295716950438625
Google+
https://plus.google.com/communities/108448922585036678747
Twitter
http://twitter.com/koffietime

Read more about AOT programs at this link 
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/solution/assisted-outpatient-treatment-laws

Dog Justice for the Mentally Ill

Preventing Advocacy for the Mentally Ill

The video embedded below is an example of the censorship faced by Mary Neal regarding efforts to give ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL. In January 2009, Rep. Eddie Johnson (D-TX) introduced H.R.619, a bill into U.S. Congress that would have resumed Medicaid insurance payments for psychiatric inpatients. That funding was deleted in the 1970s. As a result, private prisons were opened across the nation because of overcrowding as hundreds of thousands of mentally ill people who were released from hospitals became prison inmates instead of hospital inpatients. Their health condition had been criminalized. The concept of imprisoning rather than treating America's acute mental patients is very lucrative for numerous prison investors moonlighting as public officials.



Today America has approximately 1.25 million mentally ill inmates, without whom private prisons would not exist. Sick people are the backbone of the private prison industry. Between incarcerating psychiatric patients and the War on Drugs, private prison owners and investors created a huge empire by taking full advantage of victims' psychiatric conditions and drug addictions. I became the most censored person in America because of my advocacy to expose and oppose the mass incarceration and murders of America's mentally ill.

The proposal to resume using Medicaid for psychiatric hospitals under H.R.619 died in congressional committees. It was a bill that would have made mental hospitalization available for indigent acute mental patients BEFORE tragedies and avoidable crimes. But cyber stalkers were hired to prevent advocacy by hundreds of members of Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill, an online human rights organization. Throughout 2009 and 2010, years when national health care insurance was the main subject on every news show, H.R.619 was never mentioned by any journalist. The system did not want America to know that an alternative to arrests of mental patients was on the table.

Families of acute mental patients are ordinarily denied assistance for their loved ones experiencing crises. Sick Americans are deliberately left untreated until after crimes in order to keep the prison system well fed. Municipalities actually have quotas they must fulfill with private prison companies in their areas - contracts promise private prisons to keep them filled to a certain level, then our courts deliver. The worse the crimes that are committed by psychiatric patients, the longer prison terms they receive, and the more money prison investors get as a result of those sentences. That is, IF they make it to jail alive and are not killed by police officers while in custody. Many sick people are not so lucky.

Denying treatment for the lack of mental hospital beds and awaiting a crime to treat the mentally ill does not save tax money. It only redirects tax money to prisons instead of to treatment facilities.

Chronic health conditions like congestive heart failure and kidney failure are treated medically. Only mental illness is treated legally. Only mentally challenged people are shot or Tasered to death when they experience health crises - which is a circumstance that should be avoided by community care under an assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) program so that no hospitalization or incarceration would be necessary.

The criminal justice system must wait until AFTER there is a crime to act. If mental illness was not criminalized, our communities would be safer, because sick people would not be left untreated unless and until they commit some crime ranging from vagrancy to murders.

Demand an end to criminalizing mental illness. Demand that psychiatric conditions be treated as a chronic medical condition and not as a crime. Ask your congressional representative to reintroduce a bill like H.R.619 to resume health insurance for inpatient care for our mentally ill relatives and neighbors in crises and those who require long-term containment. Demand that AOT programs are enacted and used for psychiatric patients in your communities. AOT programs give subsistence assistance and mandated psychiatric treatment. AOT programs should be ordered for every psychiatric patient exiting a mental hospital or correctional institution to help them avoid future hospitalizations, incarcerations, death-by-police, and homelessness. Give ASSISTANCE TO THE INCARCERATED MENTALLY ILL.

Elvis Presley - Bipolar Genius

Many talented, famous individuals have mental health conditions that nevertheless did not stop them from making significant contributions to music, science, technology, governments, and other human advancements. After Elvis Presley died, he was evaluated and found to have been bipolar. I wrote about Elvis in 2008, on the anniversary of his death. He used to be my near neighbor when I lived in Memphis. Enjoy and share the article below, which has six links, two photographs, and a video of Elvis doing the "Jailhouse Rock." (Tip: Hit "control and the plus sign" at the top right on your keyboard TOGETHER, and the font size will increase according to your reading preferences.)

Elvis Presley's Sad Anniversary

Share:     

Published in NowPublic.com by duo | July 19, 2008 at 04:52 am

Read by 3,545

Elvis at Graceland

THAT ELVIS PRESLEY was some'um, as my grandma used to say.  I was living on Elvis Presley Boulevard on August 16, 1977, the day Elvis died.  I lived about a block from Graceland, as a matter of fact.  If you have ever been to the famous mansion, you know that the king's namesake is a  real wide thoroughfare - six lanes, I believe, with a turn lane in the center.  I was living it up in my very first apartment, an efficiency with a balcony overlooking the boulevard in apartments then called "Meadow Oaks."  I attended school during the day and worked all night at a GGJ (good government job).  Thanks to Elvis's death, I was late for work a couple of times, and had to ask for an extension on the time I had to turn in a class assignment.  (See Elvis's funeral video on third row, left.)

My excuse for being late was all the loyal fans congregating around Graceland for days after Elvis died.  Lots of them held tickets to the concert Elvis did not live to give.  Many of Elvis's fans never even tried to get a refund for their tickets, and I guess maybe those tickets are worth something now.  I tell you, folks were wandering around the area of the boulevard where Elvis's mansion is bawling their eyes out and stopping traffic.  One man must have been as inconvenienced by our out-of-town company as I was, because he just plowed into a crowd of 'em!  This was a tragic accident with injuries, but I can understand how it happened.  Traffic moved so very slow that it was easy to get bored and distracted.  I actually read while I inched along.

That August I really caught hell getting back and forth home -- even at 3:00 a.m. when I left work.  The traffic was incredibly, steadily congested within five miles of Graceland with a stream of cars inching to and from the mansion with license plates from all over the country.  Folks were actually sleeping on the grassy slope outside Graceland's fancy gates, having found no room at the inn, so to speak.  I was too naive to consider what my efficiency might have been worth as a one-week rental.  Boy, the opportunities of youth that we wish we had grasped!  Hindsight.

Anyhow, I had to park up to three miles from my apartment and walk through crowds of mourners crying and consoling each other.  I also felt bad about Elvis's death, and one evening I stopped and spent a some time with his other fans, having parked blocks away again.  It was like a wake out there, and I met people from all over the U.S. and abroad.  One family I met was from the UK.  I'm glad I stopped and spent time with them.  It turned out ot be a nice way to say goodbye to the legend that was Elvis.

Elvis Presley was a gifted vocalist with a colorful life story.  I was always impressed with the tale about Elvis buying a Cadillac for a black lady he did not even know .  Now, I don't know if the tale is true, but the story goes that one day Elvis was cruising about town in his famous pink Caddy, and he happened to pass by a Cadillac dealership in town where he noticed a black woman ogling the big, luxurious automobiles through the glass of the showroom floor.  Elvis reportedly stopped his Caddy and walked right into that dealership and bought the lady a car!  Truth or fiction, I don't know.

Elvis was some singer and dancer, alright.  I used to watch his movies on the 24" black and white television set my dad proudly purchased when I was a pre-schooler.  We were probably the first black family on our street to own a TV, and we had lots of problems with too much company for years afterward.  Yep, white people lived on my street, too.  We lived about 40 miles from Memphis in a very small town.  The fact is that complete segregation was never feasible in small towns in the South due to space restrictions.  I recently met some people from New York who told me that while growing up in Harlem, months would sometimes pass without their seeing any Caucasians.  My friend and co-worker at a firm in Decatur was from Washington State.  She told me that she was 18 years old before she went on her senior trip to Seattle and saw her first black person.  At the time, I found these accounts hard to believe.  In our little town, everyone knew everyone else, including most of their personal business and their ancestry.  Half the town were cousins to each other.  Despite Jim Crow and other silliness, there was a certain closeness, for lack of a better word, among the town's residents.  Maybe you would have to be from a small Southern town to really understand what I mean.  Do you think that for real fear and hatred to prevail in people's minds regarding another group of people, a certain amount of separatism is necessary?  Anyway, back to Elvis.

I liked Elvis's voice and have some of his music - a Christmas CD and another with Elvis's greatest hits, and I seldom miss a PBS's presentation of Elvis in concert.  But I promise you, by the end of the week he died and caused the worse traffic jam in Memphis history, if Elvis were not already dead I might have strangled him myself.  My schedule was tight in the 70's, you see.  I only had a few hours to snooze  after school each day before reporting to work at 6 o'clock in the evening.  So, besides being a tragic, unnecessary waste, Elvis's death was also a serious impediment to my rest.  It was no fun having to park and walk two miles to my apartment from a shopping center blocks away.

I had to look for alternate routes home.  I learned some back roads nearby that I never knew existed and might never have known, if only Elvis had said 'no' to drugs (see notes below).  Unfortunately, most of the back streets I tried were just circles and dead ends.  One afternoon I was determined to get all the way home in my little red VW Beetle, a semi-automatic cutie!  I was hot and tired, had no air conditioning in the bug, and I only had three hours before reporting to work.  Slow traffic was making me miserable, so I tried once again to find another route home and avoid the congestion on Elvis Presley.

The houses were quite lovely on the street I found myself traveling that day, with beautifully manicured lawns.  I had plenty of time to admire the homes, you see,  because it took about five minutes for me to pass each one.  Yes, apparently the out-of-town mourners had taken over that street, too.  Cars were double parked on both sides of the street, and I found myself moving very slowly toward a cross street where I hoped to finally get free!  Fortunately,  there was a small gap between two cars parked on my right, because coming toward me was a big Lincoln Continental, and it just kept on coming although there was barely room enough for my bug to navigate the narrow passage between the double parked cars.  I had to quickly back into the parking space to make room the Lincoln.

Do you want to know how really hurt Elvis's fans were by his untimely death?  Well, let me share with you what I saw that day.  As the driver of the Lincoln inched toward me, I noticed he was scrapping his beautiful car on both sides as he slowly rolled down the street.  Moreover, he was also scratching the sides of each and every mid-sized or large car that he passed!  (In case one of the cars was yours, no, I did not get his license number, but it was definitely an out-of-state tag.)  Thank God for my VW's compact size!  The driver was a heavyset, middle-aged guy, accompanied by folks who were likely his wife and two daughters.  Everyone in the car was crying as they scrapped along.

Elvis dominated the headlines and conversation around Memphis and the nation for a long time after his untimely death.  Even before Elvis's burial, I heard someone voice doubt about him really being dead.  Elvis was so large in his fan's eyes that some could not conceive of his dying.  Did you know someone tried to steal Elvis's body, which prompted the decision to lay Elvis to rest at Graceland?  I should have bought several copies of the Commercial Appeal.  They might have historical value today.

Goodbye, Elvis.  We still miss you.  Rest in peace.

*******************************
~ NOTES ~

Elvis Presley Was Diagnosed Post-Mortem as Suffering from Bi-Polar Disorder
http://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/
chattr081198.html

Excerpt from a transcript of a Time.com interview with Vernon Chadwick, director  of the Fourth Annual Conference on Elvis Presley - August 11, 1998

A therapist from Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey advanced the thesis that Elvis suffered bipolar disorder, which is a more technical name for manic depression, and that Elvis' substance abuse, eating disorders, and chronic depression should be placed in the larger context of a personality disorder. We think that this will shed new light on the issue of Elvis' death and will take it out of the narrow context of suspected overdose and addiction to the larger and more fundamental issues of Elvis' childhood, family history, the cultural influences of the times in which he lived, and other factors which contributed to a possible personality disorder.

********************

Elvis is an American icon.  There are few Americans who cannot sing along with Elvis' many top tunes.  This article serves to remind Americans that we share a common heritage which is as relevant to our identities as our individual cultures based on ancestral origins in pre-colonized America, Africa, Europe, or Asia.  I believe that prejudice can only be sustained and fear and hatred survive and grow in a separatist environment.  Social integration dissolves myths about people of other races, religions, and ethnicities.  Prejudice must be completely eradicated, and this can happen as we begin to focus more on our common heritage rather than divisiveness.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.  Galatians 3:27-29

*******************************

It is hard to imagine, but Elvis would have been 77 years old now.  We could have had years more to enjoy his melodic voice and watch women swoon at his gyrations on stage [perhaps if only he had sought help for depression and drug use] . . .   But alas, this was not to be, despite the many false sightings that occurred for years after Elvis was gone.

SOLUTIONS

1. DRUG COURTS

Many of America's 1.25 million mentally ill inmates have drug addictions. There is a tendency for some untreated persons to attempt to "get their heads on straight" with drugs and alcohol, which often leads to prosecution and criminal convictions. The National Association of Drug Court Professionals says that drug courts are the most effective justice strategy for addressing the drug addicted and mentally ill. Learn more about drug courts at this link http://www.nadcp.org/learn/what-are-drug-courts

2. AOT PROGRAMS

Great musicians, artists, scientists, and many plain Janes are currently incarcerated for behavior that arose from having a common, treatable health condition. Nonviolent mentally ill inmates should be released to community care and mandated to join an Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) Program. Under an AOT, they would receive subsistence assistance if they qualify financially, plus mandatory psychiatric treatment. Providing for acute mental patients' basic needs and ongoing treatment upon release from correctional institutions and mental hospitals would get mentally ill people out of the revolving door to our jails and prisons and reduce homelessness and re-hospitalization by up to 85%, as proved by New York patients who were AOT participants. It would also increase community safety, save money currently budgeted for prisons and jails, restore families, and deliver many people to back to wholesome living. The United States Department of Justice certified AOT programs last year, and a number of states use them. Learn more about AOT programs at Treatment Advocacy Center's website 
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/solution/assisted-outpatient-treatment-laws

3. PSYCHIATRIC INPATIENT HEALTH INSURANCE

In 2009, Rep. Eddie Johnson (D-TX) introduced legislation to resume Medicaid insurance to cover the cost of inpatient psychiatric treatment for acute mental patients who had a crisis or those who require long-term commitment. Unfortunately, the bill (H.R.619) did not make it out of U.S. congressional committees. In fact, because mainstream news did not cover the bill, most Americans did not know we had before Congress an opportunity to decriminalize mental illness. The bill should be re-introduced in the U.S. Congress, and everybody should HELP to give Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill. Move mental illness back to the health care system and away from the prison system. Acute mental patients who require containment should be hospital inpatients, not prison inmates.

Continue reading my human rights advocacy articles at NowPublic.com. See a video of Elvis's funeral and access at the link below, and while at NowPublic.com, see more of Mary Neal's human rights articles by clicking on the icon of the two dogs. 

Elvis Presley's Sad Anniversary | NowPublic News Coverage http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/elvis-presleys-sad-anniversary#ixzz2MtdWxK2N

HELP REDUCE THE NUMBER OF AMERICANS WITH MENTAL ILLNESS WHO ARE DOING "THE JAILHOUSE ROCK." SEE ELVIS SING "JAILHOUSE ROCK" IN CONCERT ON YOUTUBE AT http://youtu.be/tpzV_0l5ILI  AND AT THE EMBEDDED VIDEO BELOW.

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
Website: http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

Dog Justice for the Mentally Ill