By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA, Jan. 29
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They deal with it all the time, but most prosecutors and police are
poorly equipped to handle those with mental illness
and have little understanding of the malady, said Kansas Attorney General Paul Morrison.
“Most prosecutors don”t know anything about it,” Morrison said. “I”ve had people on my staff who thought mental illness was a result of bad parenting.”
It”s no surprise the mentally ill are filling the state”s jails and prisons, he said.
“There”s a disorderly conduct call, a cop shows up who doesn”t know anything about mental illness,” Morrison said. “The next thing you know there”s an altercation, a crime”s committed and the mentally ill person ends up in jail.”
Morrison, a Johnson County prosecutor for 26 years, said it”s time for the state”s law enforcement community to embrace crisis intervention teams.
“I call it Mental Health 101,” he said. “You can be educated and still be a hard-ass prosecutor. I”m living proof of that.”
Morrison addressed a National Alliance on Mental Illness-sponsored conference on crisis intervention teams here last week.
About 300 people
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a mix of police officers, jailers and mental health workers
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attended the day-long meeting. Organizers had expected between 50 and 75 attendees.
“This is one of the most exciting things going on in the state right now,” said Howard Snider, a past NAMI-Kansas president who helped organize the crisis intervention team in Johnson County.
Hutchinson and Emporia also have crisis intervention teams. The teams were developed using a special training program developed by the Memphis Police Department and the city”s NAMI chapter in 1988.
“It works,” said Don Cripps, who helped start the crisis intervention team in Lee”s Summit, Mo., in 1999.
“It”s the best system I know of for avoiding the worst situation
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someone getting killed,” Cripps said.
As part of the training, people with mental illness explain what schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are.
“You may find yourself confronted by someone who”s schizophrenic and suicidal and who has a knife,” Cripps said, addressing the police officers in the audience. “You”re going to tell him to drop the knife, but what you don”t realize is that the voices in his head that are telling him to kill himself are so loud that he doesn”t hear a word you”re saying.”
NAMI-Kansas and Topeka law enforcement officials are in the early stages of developing a crisis intervention team.
“We just got a grant to help develop a program here and to do some statewide connecting with communities that are interested,” said Rick Cagan, executive director at NAMI-Kansas.
“By this time next year, I hope to have Topeka on the roster and maybe have Lawrence and Manhattan developing,” he said.
The change in approach, he said, is long overdue.
“Right now, 900 people in the Department of Corrections system are what we call “seriously and persistently mental ill,”” Cagan said.
“At the same time, our state hospitals for the mentally ill have about 625 beds,” he said. “So whether we want to admit it or not, we”re using our prison system to house our mentally ill. I”d say it”s time we try something else.”
Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.