Proposal by Katie Porter
The co-sponsors cited research showing people with mental illnesses are 16 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement officers.
by Brett Wilkins, staff writer
Tuesday, October 20
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and three other Democratic lawmakers introduced a bill on October 20, 2020 aimed at reducing police violence against mentally ill people. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call) Four Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday introduced a bill aimed at reducing violence against people with mental illnesses by supporting the creation of special units that would be dispatched instead of police to respond to mental health crises.
The Mental Health Justice Act (pdf) was introduced by Reps. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), Tony Cárdenas (D-Calif.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), and Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.). The bill would create a grant program to fund the hiring, training, salaries, and benefits of mental health first responder units that would be deployed following relevant 911 calls. The measure is co-sponsored by 25 Democratic lawmakers.
Furthermore, people with mental illnesses who are arrested are often charged with minor offenses, fueling the epidemic of mass incarceration in which approximately 20% of jail inmates and 15% of state prisoners—or over 350,000 individuals nationwide (pdf)—suffer from serious mental illness.
—so they can get the care they need.”
Porter added that “too often individuals with mental illness and intellectual and developmental disabilities are subject to unnecessary violence and are cycled in and out of our justice system when they’d be much better served by other community resources.”
“This common sense legislation would enable mental health providers to be first on the scene when 911 is called for a mental health emergency, making our communities safer for all,” she asserted.
Today, I proudly joined @RepKatiePorter, @RepPressley, and @RepMGS to introduce the Mental Health Justice Act that would empower local governments to send mental health professionals in a mental health emergency. Our bill will save lives. https://t.co/olvcnBvgic
— Rep. Tony Cárdenas (@RepCardenas) October 20, 2020
Scanlon said in a statement that “for too long, the problems of people living with mental illness and disabilities have been ignored, and they have ended up in our criminal justice system—often with fatal consequences.”
Cárdenas also issued a statement, asserting that “we must drastically change policing in America” and stressing that “making our communities safer does not mean we treat everyone as a threat.”
“The way we’ve criminalized mental health disorders and developmental disabilities has led to an increase in police-related violence and, in serious cases, death,” he said. “This legislation will change emergency response protocols so that mental health providers are first on the scene of a mental health emergency [and] make our neighborhoods safer.”
The bill is endorsed by dozens of mental health and civil rights advocacy groups, including the NAACP, National Disability Rights Network, and the American Psychological Association.
“We applaud Rep. Katie Porter for introducing legislation to establish a federal grant program encouraging states and local governments to develop the capacity to send mental health responders rather than police in response to 911 calls,” said Jennifer Mathis, director of policy and legal advocacy at the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, one of the groups endorsing the bill.
“Countless people with psychiatric disabilities continue to be killed or needlessly incarcerated in situations where dispatching someone other than law enforcement could have avoided these senseless and tragic outcomes,” she added. “The Mental Health Justice Act is precisely the type of legislation that Congress should be considering now and we will work with Rep. Porter to secure its passage.”
This article published by Common Dreams on October 20, 2020, here…
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