[caption id=”attachment_105054″ align=”aligncenter” width=”605″] (AP Photo/Bill Haber)
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It’s National Police Week, and there’s a bipartisan consensus forming around a solution to a big burden on law enforcement and jails. Too many mentally ill offenders, who could be treated, are entering the criminal justice system – again and again. By reforming the way our justice system handles such cases, Congress could help states reduce recidivism, save taxpayer money, and ensure public safety – not to mention rescue young lives.
As an Air Force Reserve officer, who served in Iraq, I’m proud that my Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act, which I introduced in Congress with Sen. Al Franken (D- MN), would create special courts and other assistance programs for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, for example.
Returning military men and women, many with their entire lives ahead of them, deserve more help healing from combat stress, rather than face imprisonment for their struggles with PTSD. But more help for veterans is not the only way my bill would assist deserving candidates and police departments, too.
With the aim of decreasing long-term public expenses, my bill would increase correctional mental health services, so that inmates would receive treatment for their disorders and be less likely to return to county jails. It would require the Justice Department to dispense the most up-to-date data from the best programs to local governments.
Even closer to home, underequipped law enforcement officers would receive improved mental health training. Those who police our streets are often the first to encounter mentally ill individuals, who require a different professional approach. Police would be better protected.
Identifying and diverting some people into treatment programs or facilities other than jails would alleviate the high costs – both financial and social – of repeat offenders and imprisonment.
In Georgia, where I served in the state house before serving Georgia’s northeast district in Congress, we know that greater mental health investments save taxpayer money in the long term, as well as help to create productive citizens, who contribute to our growing economy.
Gov. Nathan Deal, whose reforms I am working to institute more widely, is a leader of near-term investments to save taxpayer money in the longer term. A case in point is Georgia’s effort to reduce youth recidivism. Because of innovative new programs, juvenile felonies and incarceration in Georgia have dropped by 62 percent – nearly 50 percent more than experts predicted. Conservative groups like Right on Crime estimate these diversionary programs save our state millions of dollars.
The Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act would similarly save public funds — a fact that my father, a former Georgia State Trooper, would appreciate.
And just this week at a “graduation ceremony” in Gilmer County, I witnessed the bill’s potential to restore hope to some Ninth District residents. Under supervision by their local mental health court, graduates of a treatment program will assimilate back into their communities and lead productive lives.
During National Police Week, we can all be grateful that our law enforcement officers will have more time to patrol our streets.
