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South Florida Sun-Sentinel

April 21, 2003

Reprinted with permission of the authors. All rights reserved. Visit the Sun Sentinel online.

OPED
Without reforms, problems mount

by Ken Jenne and Donald F. Eslinger

The Baker Act is Florida's Mental Health Law, the law that outlines when and how a person with a severe mental illness can be brought in for treatment. While untreated mental illness should be a medical issue, in many counties law enforcement officers rather than mental health professionals are filing the petitions to initiate examination and treatment.

In 2001, Broward County saw 8,093 Baker Act petitions filed and a stunning 3,541 of them - 43 percent - were filed by law enforcement.

There was a 3,000 percent increase between 1997 and 2000 in the number of counties where mental health professionals issued no Baker Act certificates at all. In 2001, law enforcement handled more Baker Acts than burglaries.

Law enforcement officers aren't mental health professionals, but Florida law is forcing us into that position. Without reform, the problems will continue to mount. For this reason, Baker Act reform is a top priority for the Florida Sheriffs Association this legislative session.

The Baker Act is often interpreted to require that someone with a severe mental illness is dangerous before courts can order treatment. When that line is crossed, and the person has actually become dangerous, it is invariably law enforcement officers who are called.

People with untreated severe mental illnesses are four times more likely to be killed in an altercation with law enforcement than people in the general population.

Many law enforcement officers are being trained to handle confrontations with someone in a severe crisis brought on by lack of treatment for a mental illness. Tools like mental health courts and special task forces can also make a difference.

But almost 75 percent of petitions filed in Broward County in 2001 specified that there was a substantial likelihood of serious bodily harm to self or others. These people are in serious crises. They should be helped before they reach this point, by people trained to assess and treat brain diseases, not people trained to enforce the law.

The Broward Sheriff's Office runs the largest mental health institution in the county - the jail.

There are at least three times more people with severe mental illnesses in Florida's jails than are being treated in state psychiatric hospitals, many arrested for misdemeanors resulting from their illnesses.

It costs Broward County taxpayers $78 per day to house a general population inmate, but it costs $125 per day to house an inmate with a mental illness. Treatment is cheaper and more effective when done in a clinical setting by mental health professionals - not in the jails, by detention deputies.

The reform proposed by the Florida Sheriffs Association would allow earlier intervention for people with severe mental illnesses who are unable to make rational treatment decisions for themselves. It would also allow court-ordered community-based treatment, a mechanism that has proven to be remarkably effective in New York. Recent statistics show that of those placed in six months of assisted outpatient treatment through December 3, 2002, 77 percent fewer were hospitalized, 85 percent fewer experienced homelessness, 83 percent fewer were arrested, and 85 percent fewer were incarcerated.

Florida has a chance to offer similar hope to our citizens. The costs of inaction are too great. Florida legislators should quickly pass Baker Act reform, HB 1197/SB 2748.

Ken Jenne is Sheriff of Broward County. Donald F. Eslinger is Sheriff of Seminole County and Legislative Chair of the Florida Sheriffs Association.

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