USE NONPROFIT AGENCIES, NOT POLICE, TO TREAT SOCIAL ILLS

Too many mentally ill and alcoholic people end up in jail, instead of
in treatment. Funding and space are problems; there might be some
local solutions.

When it comes to addressing the bulk of mental health, substance
abuse or homeless problems in Lee County, and in the rest of Florida,
we seem to function as a third world nation.

Our answer is not expanded social services but jails and more jails.

A recent News-Press front-page story pointed out that the new $52.8
million jail on Ortiz Boulevard, which will replace the existing
stockade facility, will probably be filled to capacity when it is
completed in 2009.

The present stockade has beds for 1,635 inmates but now, thanks to
makeshift beds, houses about 2,000 prisoners, the same number that
the new building will be able to house.

While estimates vary, probably 40 percent of the jail population
should be in diversionary treatment programs rather than in lockup.

To start with, our county jail is not meant for hardened criminals;
any individual receiving a sentence of more than one year is sent to
a state prison. Those held on serious charges, and awaiting trial,
are kept in the downtown lockup.

Most prisoners are short-timers, serving 60 to 180 days for
misdemeanors or class C felonies but, without adequate treatment, or
medications or follow-up counseling, most of them become repeat offenders.

Many of our nonprofit charities try to fill this gap but they lack
the funding to significantly lower our jail population or to deal
with the majority of those individuals who, without proper
assistance, find themselves in a downward spiral.

Agencies Overloaded

Three of our major nonprofits, the Ruth Cooper Center for Behavioral
Health Care, the Southwest Florida Addiction Services, and the
Salvation Army have the knowledge and the "know-how" to provide
alternatives to jail time but lack the staffing, the beds and the
money to deal with the enormity of the problem.

They all do an excellent job with the resources that they do have but
the truth of the matter is that the social ills of our community are
too often left to law enforcement.

This is an expensive approach since it costs more than $20,000
annually to house an inmate, and our nonprofits can make that amount
go a long way toward both reducing the rate of recidivism and helping
individuals turn their lives around.

Ask any sheriff's deputy, or city police officer, how many times they
brought mentally ill and/or intoxicated individuals to one of the
nonprofits as an alternative to incarceration only to be told, "we
simply don't have the room."

SWFAS, for example, has a total of 17 beds to treat addicts and
depends largely on outpatient services.

It's not that our community is not making an effort.

The 20th Judicial Circuit has established both drug addiction and
mental health courts where individuals may be afforded the
opportunity for court-supervised probation until they successfully
complete treatment.

However, the funding, the staffing and the facilities for treatment
are so inadequate that only a small percentage of those arrested,
usually first-time offenders, are able to enter these programs.

This lack of funding has evoked outrage from circuit court judges
throughout Florida.

Solutions Exist

Early this year the three nonprofits mentioned previously, with
encouragement from the county commission, hired former state Rep.
Keith Arnold to lobby the state legislature for a $3.6 million grant
so they could jointly address some of these problems.

They received a $200,000 token amount.

The situation is getting even bleaker; the city of Fort Myers has
criminalized homelessness and other cities in the county are following suit.

Many of the homeless are mentally challenged or alcoholics and this
"not in my neighborhood" approach will only further overcrowd the jail system.

However there may be light at the end of the tunnel if county
officials can rise to the occasion.

By 2008 Lee Memorial Health System , which is building a new hospital
at Daniels and Metro, will find itself with an empty 400- bed
Southwest Regional Hospital on Evans Avenue.

While there are those who doubt that the building can be successfully
refurbished, others think it can be.

It could serve a myriad of functions in coordination with the
nonprofits - as a mental health facility, a detoxification center, an
outpatient preventive care and treatment center and, in the process,
eliminate the need for another $50 or $100 million jail in less than 10 years.

LMHS, which loses millions of dollars annually treating the mentally
ill or substance abusers who are brought or come to its emergency
centers, will be motivated to make the price of the hospital very attractive.

How do we handle annual operating costs?

The half-cent sales tax referendum is still an excellent option.

I am confident that this time our citizens will embrace this
undertaking when they realize that the revenues will go to support a
much broader level of needed community services.

- - Rick Diamond is a retired newspaper publisher and community
activist who lives in Fort Myers.