Please Support SB 11: Mental Illness and Criminal Justice System

Senator Mary Caferro’s Senate Bill 11 to make Montana’s criminal justice system deal more effectively with offenders with mental illness is in front of the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Safety Committee on Friday, January 11^th at 3:00 PM in Room 317 at the Capitol.  Please contact the Committee and individual legislators either online or by telephone before that meeting to let them know you support Senate Bill 11.  (I’ve included a description of what the bill does below my signature.)

Here is a link to the bill, but we did pull out Sections 5-7 in order to gain the support of the LCPCs and Social Workers. There will also be an amendment to make it clear that Guilty But Mentally Ill parolees who have their parole revoked will be directed into the exact same process of being committed to the head of DPHHS as when they were convicted without any additional placement requirements.

 Here are the legislators on that Committee: Jason Priest, Terry Murphy, Mary Caferro, Greg Jergeson, Fred Thomas, Dave Wanzenried, and Art Wittich.

Online: You can leave a message for the Committee or individual legislators with the online message form at this link. http://leg.mt.gov/css/Sessions/63rd/legwebmessage.asp

By telephone: The Legislative Information Desk’s regular office hours during the session are 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to adjournment on Saturdays. Callers may leave messages for legislators or acquire general legislative information by calling the Information Desk at (406) 444-4800. Callers may leave messages for up to 5 individual legislators or 1 legislative committee per call.

Please share this email message with anyone who you think might be interested in helping reform Montana’s criminal justice system.

Thank you,

Matt Kuntz

Executive Director

NAMI Montana

www.namimt.org

(406) 443-7871

Please Support Senate Bill 11

Senate Bill 11 is sponsored by Senator Mary Caferro. The bill revises the parole and probation system to work more effectively for offenders that have a serious mental illness. The bill’s main focus is on prisoners who have been convicted as Guilty but Mentally Ill and sentenced to the custody of the Department of Public Health and Human Services. This is only roughly 1% of the Correction population, but the reason for their unlawful actions are different than other prisoners, so their release dates and the supervision requirements should reflect that difference. It is critically important make this system as effective as possible for public safety, the impact on the offender’s lives, and the significant costs to the State of Montana of both keeping offenders in institutions longer than necessary and having them repeatedly return to the institution.

The Bill also provides for overall training and Parole Board requirements that will help the Corrections system deal with all prisoners with mental illness.

·         The main function of the bill will be to make it clear that offenders committed to the Department of Public Health and Human Services can utilize supervised mental health treatment programs in order to help them qualify for parole. MCA 46-23-101(6)

·         The bill will help get offenders who are deemed ready of the of the expensive institutions and back in the communities in supervised programs that will ensure the offenders continue treating the mental illness symptoms that made them dangerous. MCA 46-23-101(6). The current system of paroling these inmates has a 60% recidivism rate.

·         This bill will make the parole standard for offenders who are deemed Guilty But Mentally Ill solely depend on their ability to be safe in the community through participation in a supervised mental illness treatment system, by excluding them from the broad requirement that offenders must serve a quarter of their sentence before being eligible for parole.

·         This bill will mandate mental illness training for the Parole Board, probation, and parole officers. It will also require two members of the Parole Board to be mental health providers.

·         This bill will make it clear that an offender may have a mental illness and another co-occurring brain conditions such as developmental disabilities and substance abuse conditions.