A New View: Families Act! examines link between mental health services, drug laws, jail overcrowding and Measure S By NOAH SMITH -- SEPT. 17, 2010

Debate has swirled surrounding Proposition 19 and Measure S, but little of the discussion has focused on the possible links between the two.

Families ACT! and other area groups are hoping to change that.

“There is a connection between our drug laws, lack of mental health facilities, and jail overcrowding,” says Suzanne Riordan, executive director of Families ACT!, a group that advocates for individuals who suffer from mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction.

Riordan will hold a press conference at 11 a.m. this Saturday at the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Headquarters to tackle the issues head-on.

She will be joined by Gretchen Burns Bergman, a nationally recognized organizer representing Mothers United Against the War on Drugs and A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing).

Families ACT! was founded in 2007, after multiple instances during 2005 and 2006 in which young dually diagnosed individuals died in Santa Barbara.

“We need more community support for residential treatment programs,” Riordan said. “Jail overcrowding is only a symptom of a much bigger complex of problems.”

Proposition 19 would effectively legalize marijuana possession for personal use while Measure S would authorize a half-cent tax increase to go toward the construction of a new Santa Barbara jail.

Both will be on the Santa Barbara County ballot this coming November.

“We are working for a therapeutic drug policy,” Bergman said. “Lives are at stake and we are losing our children to the war on drugs and addiction. We need an end to prohibition. People should not be criminalized for drug addiction. We cannot punish our way out of this problem, we need more therapeutic, as opposed to punitive measures”

Currently, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s department runs the Sheriff’s Treatment Program (STP), a drug and alcohol counseling program.

The county also runs the pre-conviction Substance Abuse Treatment Court, which allows serious drug offenders to undertake treatment in order earn a dismissal of their charges.

Yet, there is a 2-to-3 month waiting list for the STP and, according to the Santa Barbara Task Force on Co-Occurring Disorders, three out of four who apply don’t get in.

The Sheriff’s Blue Ribbon Commission on Prison Overcrowding of 2008, cites this lack of access and states that it is a result of the overcrowding problem.

Measure S would also provide up to $5 million for programs which attempt to prevent recidivism.

Riordan acknowledges the funding for recidivism prevention included in Measure S, but says that it is “not addressing mental health problems.”

“Building another jail does not address the real causes of jail overcrowding,” she said. “We need to overhaul our criminal justice system with an emphasis on treatment, not incarceration.”

“There are alternatives to incarceration,” she said.

In a video report for the public summarizing the Sheriff’s Blue Ribbon Commission, contributor Dr. Aris Alexander, former consultant to the Wisconsin State Prison System, adds that “mentally ill people are not good for jails and jails are not good for mentally ill people.”