DO NO HARM: CRISIS CARE RESPONSE

Our Country has experienced great tragedy in handling mental health crisis. I believe we should not have “crisis intervention” nor “crisis response,” but have “CRISIS CARE RESPONSE.”

Currently, if someone is having a mental health crisis and there is no aggression or violence involved, the encounters are generally safe and no tragedy occurs. When aggression or violence is reported or observed, only the police are involved until the scene is rendered safe. That means, when mental health responders are needed the most, they are unavailable. That is the “CRISIS” of a “crisis response.”

I propose a “Crisis Care Response,” where technicians are trained to deescalate and immobilize aggressive and violent mental health clients in a patient safety and care first approach.

I recently proposed an organization called “Citizens for Social Awareness and Response,” (CSAR). My objective in CSAR is to prevent mental health crisis before the start. This requires an “awareness.” Communities must become actively aware of the social needs of the community. This would require volunteers to check in with “at risk” persons in the community, tailored as needed to prevent mental health crisis. Secondly, a skilled technician would develop a compassionate and empathic relationship with the “at risk” person. I would wholeheartedly agree with the use of advanced directives for mental health and include transportation in those directives.

I disagree with the current approach to the severely mentally ill (SMI) crisis response. The response needs to be “non harmful,” not “lethal” or “less than lethal.” The response needs to be a “crisis care response” and mental health needs to be in charge of mental health emergencies. When you call 911 for yourself or someone else who is having a mental health crisis, you need mental health to respond and be in charge.

I want to see a new program that trains technicians to respond to mental health crisis and provide cognitive behavioral coaching for “at risk” persons. Because behavioral health provides and oversees education and therapy for mental illness and criminal offenders, behavioral health technicians could be trained to cover both. That means a behavioral health technician may provide cognitive behavioral coaching to a mental health patient and to an offender all in the course of a days work. When there is a crisis emergency, the technician responds like a paramedic for the mentally ill. This frees up police and ems resources. Secondly, it prevents mental health providers from having to respond.

The behavioral health technicians would need extensive training. This might require a full-time year long training program. The training could be divided into three successive areas: Prescience of mental health and criminology, subject area training, and finally cognitive behavioral coaching and crisis response. The technicians would also be trained to utilize equipment that would immobilize a person in a medical way using “non-harmful” equipment and techniques.

I am asking our Federal Government to issue emergency funding for rapid research and development of non harmful equipment to immobilize individuals when necessary. The equipment must allow use by medical and mental health responders.

Stop the Harm and demand our government provide a non harmful crisis care response to mental health crisis and to immobilize police suspects who may resist due to mental health crisis, substance abuse or stress.

Thank you for your consideration.

Kevin L. TowerNo. 253542Lakeland Correctional Facility141 First StreetColdwater, Mi 49036

THE KITCHEN DON’T PAY

Nate was at the prison for three months when he received a Food Service (Kitchen) assignment. For three months Nate had been receiving about $11 a month in indigence loans. He now had an institutional debt of $33 as indigent loans must be repaid.

Now working in the kitchen Nate would make 17.5¢ per hour. Nate worked six hours a day for 22 days. That was 132 hours at 17.5¢ equalling $23.10 for the month. Because Nate had an institutional debt of $33, half of the $23.10 was collected on the institutional debt. That left Nate with a total income after working 132 hours of $11.55. It would take Nate three months to pay off his debt. That means the first six months after moving to a new prison Nate made a total of $69.30.

We know in impoverished communities where families cannot afford to give teenagers allowances and if there are little to know jobs available and the teen has approximately $2.50 a week in pocket change, there is an extremely high likelihood this will lead to crime. In prison, there is no difference. Contrary to popular belief prisoners are not provided with free hygiene items. If you don’t have funds you are going to stink. If you stink your going to have problems with other prisoners. The only thing the facilities provide is green soap, water and unsanitary laundry services where your whites are darker after they are washed and often smell worse when they return.

At $23.10 a month, Nate has a choice of a purchasing cosmetics or calling home and writing a letter each week. Be conservatively clean or keep in touch with his family. Not both.

The State employee watching Nate work makes more in one hour than Nate makes in 132 hours. Do you think that makes Nate feel like he is valued at 1/132 of a person? Then factor in the emotions that come from stinking because Nate doesn’t make enough to keep himself clean or to have contact with his family. Is that humane? Is that Justice? The only place Nate is going to get actual support is from his loved ones. Prisoner’s loved one’s, often impoverished themselves, reluctantly fulfill a responsibility that belongs to the State.

YOU CAN’T WIN FOR LOOSING

Paul who had been in prison for several years was working on completing his programming in order to get a parole. Paul was in GED programming and was given a school stipend of about $6 a month. Paul also worked as a unit porter (janitor). Because he was in the GED program, he could only work part-time. Part-time porter pay was 37¢ per day. Paul worked 22 days a month. That paid $8.14 a month. For going to school and working five days a week Paul received a little over $14 a month.

$14 will not get you far in prison. It certainly did not cover the cost of monthly hygiene items like: soap, shampoo, deodorant, toothpaste. On one occasion as Paul could not even maintain cleanliness, he held onto some prison “spud juice” (alcohol) for another prisoner, just to get a few extra dollars for necessities the prison did not supply. When the spud juice was discovered by staff, Paul was written and then found guilty of substance abuse. This lead to greater difficulties in Paul obtaining a parole and ultimately delayed his release. At nearly $50 thousand dollars a year to incarcerate someone, even a six month delay in parole cost the State nearly $25 thousand dollars.

Paul, unable to provide for himself on prison wages, ended up begging family members to send money to him. At the cost of his family and the State, Paul was eventually able to obtain his long awaited delayed parole.

PRISONERS OWE THEIR SOULS TO THE PRISON STORE

Tim was Sentenced to prison 25 years ago. Within weeks of arriving at a prison, Tim was given a Unit Porter (Janitorial) assignment. He was allowed to work most days and because he did good work the Corrections Officers who supervised him, paid him generously. 25 years ago a porter or yard worker assignment would pay $30 a month or more. Over the years the prison system has dramatically reduced how prisoners are paid. They are paid at the lowest possible rate and for the least amount of days. A porter or yard worker now makes around $15 a month for the same job they were paid $30 for 25 years ago.

To give a comparison 25 years ago a name brand bag of coffee cost prisoners $2.25 or less. Today a generic bag cost over $5.00. 25 years ago $30 could buy 13 bags of name brand coffee. Today $15 will not pay for 3 bags of generic coffee.

Over the years, each new administration found ways to cut back on prisoner pay. One clear example is bonuses food service workers use to receive. Kitchen workers are paid the same hourly rate they were paid 25 years ago. The difference is that around 15 years ago the prison administration took away bonus pay. Bonus pay essentially doubled a prisoners food service pay. 17.5¢ an hour was not much 25 years ago. The bonuses were used as incentives to get prisoners to work in the hot kitchen all day. Those incentives do not exist any more. Inflation and prisoner store prices continue to rise.

Prisoners can work all month long and if they do not have family or friends sending them money, they cannot afford basic human needs like cosmetics, stamps or phone calls.

It is like Tim works at an old lumber camp. The Boss pays him just enough to stay indebt to the company store. The Boss won’t let him leave until the debt is paid. The only way to get out of the lumber camp is to write home to the impoverished family Tim comes from to ask for money to pay off the debt. The prison system has become a debtor’s prison to prisoners and their families. Tim should not have to wake up each morning feeling like his soul is owed to the prison store.