Reporter's Notebook – By Amanda Estes
Doing time at the county jail
I hesitate to write about another negative trend in Southern Maine because I don't want to convey that I am a pessimist, however, I feel compelled to write about my experience at the Cumberland County Jail. My experience there cleared up a lot of misconceptions in my own mind and if I can't do that for others, I hope that individuals will take the time to seek out more information about the jail's current state.
Approaching the jail, I had no idea what to expect, but I knew that I was being given an opportunity to see how the jail operates first hand. Like everyone else, I had heard the complaints that the jail is sucking up all of the taxpayer's money, but the reasons behind the jail's budget increases were not so readily available. Prior to the tour, I learned that the jail was suffering from a combination of increasing medical costs, a lack of funds and a lack of state responsibility.
Ironically, the night before my jail visit, I watched a “60 Minutes” story about an inmate that was chained to a slab until he died of thirst. The man suffered from manic depression and his criminal history consisted of a shoplifting incident. Not surprisingly, the story was mentioned prior to the tour. I don't mean to imply that there has been any mistreatment by jail officials at Cumberland County, but I simply mean to reinforce that jails cannot become a substitute for a mental health facility. A story like this evokes anger because the inmate was grossly mistreated. It is unlikely that people in Cumberland County will become angry about housing the mentally ill in our local facility because as long as no one is being seriously harmed, there isn't a problem.
Despite the best efforts of the staff, the medical department is not equipped to operate as both full-time physicians and full-time psychiatrists. As it stands now, the department has been forced to conduct its administrative business in closets. Some taxpayers become angry when we have to foot the bill for transporting inmates to receive outside care because they view it as special treatment for a criminal that doesn't deserve it. We tend to see any inmate, and I am guilty of this as well, as the epitome of a criminal and we rarely stop to consider how they arrived at the jail. If I saw two deputies transferring an inmate into a medical facility, I would automatically assume that the person was a threat to the public. I would be less likely to consider the possibility that the individual may have a mental illness and be of more danger to himself or herself. I think this is a common thought process that isn’t necessarily something to be ashamed of, but rather it is just that people automatically associate certain images with criminals.
It is daunting to me that two-thirds of the detainees in the Cumberland County Jail require some sort of antipsychotic drug and that six percent suffer from a chronic mental illness. These are the statistics I would expect to see associated with a hospital rather than a corrections facility. How can we reasonably expect the jail to even come close to meeting its medical costs when the general consensus is that the jail has already cost the county too much? There are major gaps in the information link between the state, the county, and the municipalities. The state's refusal to provide even adequate funding for the jail simply reinforces the public's belief that the jail is a money pit. How can the public understand the challenges that the jail is facing when the state seems to have no opinion on the matter?
Personally, I think talking about a jail and mental illness in the same sentence makes people nervous and uncomfortable. It conjures up dark images of torture and electro-shock therapy and a time when mentally ill individuals were treated worse than hardened criminals. As a society, we like to think that we have come a long way in understanding mental illness. Clearly, we still have a ways to go if mentally ill people are being diverted to jail without a second thought. Education is a key component in getting the public to realize that the jail has been forced to operate at a precarious level. As a community, it seems reckless and counter-intuitive to continue to demand so much from jail and county officials without giving something back in return.
I hesitate to write about another negative trend in Southern Maine because I don't want to convey that I am a pessimist, however, I feel compelled to write about my experience at the Cumberland County Jail. My experience there cleared up a lot of misconceptions in my own mind and if I can't do that for others, I hope that individuals will take the time to seek out more information about the jail's current state.
Approaching the jail, I had no idea what to expect, but I knew that I was being given an opportunity to see how the jail operates first hand. Like everyone else, I had heard the complaints that the jail is sucking up all of the taxpayer's money, but the reasons behind the jail's budget increases were not so readily available. Prior to the tour, I learned that the jail was suffering from a combination of increasing medical costs, a lack of funds and a lack of state responsibility.
Ironically, the night before my jail visit, I watched a “60 Minutes” story about an inmate that was chained to a slab until he died of thirst. The man suffered from manic depression and his criminal history consisted of a shoplifting incident. Not surprisingly, the story was mentioned prior to the tour. I don't mean to imply that there has been any mistreatment by jail officials at Cumberland County, but I simply mean to reinforce that jails cannot become a substitute for a mental health facility. A story like this evokes anger because the inmate was grossly mistreated. It is unlikely that people in Cumberland County will become angry about housing the mentally ill in our local facility because as long as no one is being seriously harmed, there isn't a problem.
Despite the best efforts of the staff, the medical department is not equipped to operate as both full-time physicians and full-time psychiatrists. As it stands now, the department has been forced to conduct its administrative business in closets. Some taxpayers become angry when we have to foot the bill for transporting inmates to receive outside care because they view it as special treatment for a criminal that doesn't deserve it. We tend to see any inmate, and I am guilty of this as well, as the epitome of a criminal and we rarely stop to consider how they arrived at the jail. If I saw two deputies transferring an inmate into a medical facility, I would automatically assume that the person was a threat to the public. I would be less likely to consider the possibility that the individual may have a mental illness and be of more danger to himself or herself. I think this is a common thought process that isn’t necessarily something to be ashamed of, but rather it is just that people automatically associate certain images with criminals.
It is daunting to me that two-thirds of the detainees in the Cumberland County Jail require some sort of antipsychotic drug and that six percent suffer from a chronic mental illness. These are the statistics I would expect to see associated with a hospital rather than a corrections facility. How can we reasonably expect the jail to even come close to meeting its medical costs when the general consensus is that the jail has already cost the county too much? There are major gaps in the information link between the state, the county, and the municipalities. The state's refusal to provide even adequate funding for the jail simply reinforces the public's belief that the jail is a money pit. How can the public understand the challenges that the jail is facing when the state seems to have no opinion on the matter?
Personally, I think talking about a jail and mental illness in the same sentence makes people nervous and uncomfortable. It conjures up dark images of torture and electro-shock therapy and a time when mentally ill individuals were treated worse than hardened criminals. As a society, we like to think that we have come a long way in understanding mental illness. Clearly, we still have a ways to go if mentally ill people are being diverted to jail without a second thought. Education is a key component in getting the public to realize that the jail has been forced to operate at a precarious level. As a community, it seems reckless and counter-intuitive to continue to demand so much from jail and county officials without giving something back in return.
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