Lack of mental help keeps (15,000) kids locked up (in jail )

[papau]

http://www.freep.com/news/childrenfirst/juvie7_20040707.htm

Lack of mental (health) help keeps kids locked up

Stays in detention cost millions, survey finds July 7, 2004
BY JACK KRESNAK FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Thousands of children sit needlessly in the nation's juvenile-detention facilities because they need mental health services, costing those facilities more than $100 million a year, according to a survey commissioned by two lawmakers to be released todayin Washington.

Juvenile-detention facilities have become, by default, a last-resort placement for many mentally ill or emotionally disturbed children, said Leonard Dixon, director of the Wayne County Juvenile Detention Facility in Detroit.

"Kids are coming into detention who really should not be in detention; they should be served in the community," said Dixon, who is among six experts scheduled to testify before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committeetoday in Washington.

Such youths "are more difficult to manage, more explosive, more easily agitated, require more intensive supervision and create more strain on direct-care staff than other youths within a juvenile-detention facility," said Dixon, who is president of the National Juvenile Detention Association.

The survey, commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, found that during a 6-month period of 2003, nearly 15,000 youths (one as young as age 7 and 110 facilities had 10 year olds - in 33 states) -- about 8 percent of all children in more than 500 centers surveyed from 49 states -- were in detention (costing $100 million) because there were no suitable mental health services available for them. The survey was conducted after years of complaints by advocates for mentally ill people and incarcerated youths. The average length of stay for most juveniles at the Wayne County facility is about 18 days, Dixon said, but kids with serious mental health needs stay more than twice as long because there are not enough suitable mental health programs for them. <snip>

Contact JACK KRESNAK at 313-223-4544 or [e-mail].


http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/07/07/mental.health.ap/index.html

Report: Jails warehouse mentally ill kids
Wednesday, July 7, 2004 Posted: 11:23 AM EDT (1523 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thousands of mentally ill youths are unnecessarily put in juvenile detention centers to await mental health treatment, a House committee reported Wednesday.

Centers usually are not equipped to treat mental illness, and in some cases the youths have not been charged with a crime, said the report by the Democratic staff of the House Government Reform Committee.

"The use of juvenile detention facilities to house youth waiting for community mental health services is widespread and a serious national problem," said the report, which found that two-thirds of juvenile detention facilities hold youths who are waiting for mental health treatment.

"This misuse of detention centers as holding areas for mental health treatment is unfair to youth, undermines their health, disrupts the function of detention centers and is costly to society...Thousands of youth who are in need of community mental health services are stuck in jail until these services become available," Waxman said in a statement. "This is deplorable. Congress must ensure that our children have access to the mental health care that they need."<snip>

[donsu]

1. america does not like children

in the 60's I started saying that.

any rights american children have, have been hard fought for.

and every decade since the 60's it's gotten worse.

(how many children have been sexually abused? is it countable?)

our kids have catch-as-catch-can: schooling, medical, nurturing.

our present cure for anything child related is to give them a pharmacutical. they will even tell you on the TV what drug to tell your doctor to give your child, oh yes.

[commander bunnypants]

2. Just got back from jail seeing some clients

One problem is do they want services? Mine refuse medication and we cant force it. I wish I knew the answer

Sad

DDQM

[Mandate My Ass]

3. We criminalized disease in this country

Reagan made it acceptable if not fashionable, now Bushie will make it profitable for his buddies in the PIC.

Thousands of children sit needlessly in the nation's juvenile-detention facilities because they need mental health services, costing those facilities more than $100 million a year....

And ummm NO! It will cost the taxpayers $100M/yr.

[RobinA]

4. It's Not Only Children

who are in the judicial system when they should be in the mental health system, the same applies to adults in prison. Policy makers don't seem to want to get serious about treating mental illness.

[papau]

5. Sigh - very true

:-(

[Senior citizen]

6. Andrew Vachss (who ONLY defends kids) recommends

that people who care about kids join this PAC

http://www.protect.org/

Vachss is on their advisory board.

Please join--I did, and I'm not a joiner. For Congress to help kids, we need to make a lot of changes in Congress.