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Cerabino: Defund police? That'll affect area's biggest mental health provider

Palm Beach Post - 6/9/2020

The three most controversial words in the national dialogue this week are "defund the police."

It sounds like a radical idea, and to many it is. But on the margins, there are areas of agreement that both its most staunch advocates and critics can agree on.

So, let's go back in the time machine. Two years ago. It was just an ordinary Central Palm Beach County Chamber of Commerce luncheon.

But the invited speaker that day, Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw, said something extraordinary. And it was far from the first time he has made a similar statement.

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"I don't think it's my job to be the biggest mental health provider in the county," Bradshaw told the local business group. "I don't like it. It's not the right way to do things."

Bradshaw said his deputies deal with 3,700 mental health cases every year, about 10 to 12 a day.

About 85 percent of the population in the county jail are there for a drug issue, and about a quarter of those with drug issues are people self-medicating their mental illnesses.

Those too poor to post bail sit untreated in their jail cells, awaiting the disposition of their cases -- often for petty crimes -- then get released back to the street, where the cycle repeats.

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"Deputies don't have the skills or intricacies for mental health treatment," Bradshaw said.

Bradshaw's not an outlier in this view of misplaced law enforcement resources. Four years before he made that luncheon speech, the National Sheriff's Association complained that America had returned to the 18-century practice of incarcerating the mentally ill rather than treating them in medical settings.

"Prison and jail officials are being asked to assume responsibility for the nation's most seriously mentally ill individuals, despite the fact that the officials did not sign up to do this job; are not trained to do it; face severe legal restrictions in their ability to provide treatment for such individuals; and yet are held responsible when things go wrong, as they inevitably do under such circumstances," the association said.

In the middle of last century, large and often cruel mental institutions were phased out for what was supposed to be a comprehensive network of community health services.

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But years of inadequate funding to meet the growing demand for those services has led to a return to criminalizing mental illness as a standard practice.

The Florida Supreme Court weighed in on what this has wrought.

"The unintended, but nonetheless undeniable consequences of this system have been increased homelessness, increased police injuries, increased police shootings of people with mental illnesses, critical tax dollars wasted, and the reality that we have made mental illness a crime; or at the very least a significant risk factor for criminal justice system involvement," the state's high court wrote 13 years ago in a 165-page report on the state of Florida's mental health services.

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"Our jails and prisons have become the unfortunate and undeserving 'safety nets' for an impoverished system of community mental health care, and some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged individuals in our society are allowed to unnecessarily suffer from horrific and imminently treatable illnesses," the report concluded.

So, maybe this is a good place to start. Taking this off the long menu of daunting law enforcement responsibilities.

It ought to be one area where we can all agree that defunding the police doesn't sound in the least bit crazy.

fcerabino@pbpost.com

@FranklyFlorida

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