Roy Exum: Our Jail’s Foremost Need

  • Sunday, November 27, 2016
  • Roy Exum
Roy Exum
Roy Exum

I am still staggering after my tour through the Hamilton County Jail because we as human beings must do better for our fellow man. Within two days after I was frankly horrified, I learned of “the three sisters” and their dream to go a different route. It is painfully obvious to me we must build a new jail, but my three new friends have a far-faster way to handle the overcrowding, the often violent atmosphere, and to ease the relentless fact it costs us $75,000 EACH AND EVERY DAY to run the place.

“Look inside the jail … what is the most obvious need?” asked Janna Jahn, who in real life works as a grant writer for Hamilton County. “It’s the prisoner. A surprising number shouldn’t be in there. They don’t deserve to be in there. Sheriff (Jim) Hammond is exactly right when he says he doesn’t want to run a mental hospital so I think we could easily cut the population by 40 percent if we just had a better place for our mentally-challenged people to go.”

The next day the sheriff agreed. “My budget for the jail doesn’t include the quarter million dollars I spend each year on psychotropic drugs but I absolutely have no choice. It isn’t just the right thing to do, it is the only thing I can do. We have people in jail right now because they are suffering from mental illness.”

That’s inconceivable to me. What about Moccasin Bend Hospital? “The state has cut back on the number of beds so greatly that they will not accept anyone who is not in imminent danger of suicide or homicide. And, given that, they often have no bed available,” the sheriff said. “Our only option is to put a very dangerous person in isolation. The prisoners you just saw in the (redacted) colored uniforms? We dress them that way because they are on suicide watch.”

The county jail is the very last place those helpless people need to be. “I totally agree,” answered the sheriff, “but I’m the only place that will take them.”

This is what has triggered three women who each “have day jobs” to come together in a volunteer effort. Anna Protano-Biggs in the Public Defender’s office, Donna Maddox of the Joe Johnson Health Center and Janna have already been talking about ways to break what is a vicious and complex cycle. Everybody knows that in the winter our homeless suffer as much of the cold and hunger as they can bear before they commit a misdemeanor so they can stay in a warm jail. Jail may be bad but starving while you freeze to death is worse.

As I just have learned, jail is the last garbage can that our society has for the mentally ill and that should be criminal in itself. These people suffer; they aren’t criminals. Some have been in the county jail for months and there is no end in sight. “What happens is they refuse to take their medicine and then they are too incompetent to stand before a judge,” explained Anna, who just started a Mental Health Court at the Courts Building in hopes it will have the great results the Drug Court is showing.

“If we are lucky, we can get them 72-hours at Moccasin Bend because Moccasin Bend can force them to take their meds. In the county jail they just throw them back at the guards because they know the jailers can’t force them.” Finally everybody will pull ever string they can and they leave jail with enough meds until they can be seen by an outside agency and a caseworker.

But soon they aren’t taking their medicine and they get in a fight and the zany cycle starts all over again. “We want to stop the all-over-agains,” said Janna and Sheriff Hammond loves the idea. “I can put them in a hotel for much cheaper than the jail but I have no manpower to watch and protect the mentally challenged. Trust me, I have been trying to think of every solution but it all comes down to money and there is no extra.”

That’s when Janna, the grant writer, told us about Moore Place in Charlotte, N.C. In Mecklenburg County, the city fathers built an 85-unit housing complex that has social workers, a primary care specialist and a mental health specialist on site. It holds the chronically homeless and longtime addicts. (Don’t be deceived; there is a huge mental overlap.)

In just two years Moore Place has saved the county over $2.4 million but the bigger financial gain is what is staggering – 648 fewer trips to the emergency room, 292 fewer days in the hospital, 82 percent fewer arrests and the big prize? One thousand and fifty fewer nights in the county lock-up. All were being paid by the taxpayers. Trust me, the savings are incredible.

Charlotte is now well on the way in an $11 million effort to build another Moore Place – with an addition 100 units -- that will end chronic homelessness as Mecklenburg County now knows it.

In a recent survey by AL.com, 70 percent of the sheriffs in Alabama said they had mentally ill prisoners in their jails who shouldn’t be there. “What is a bigger problem is that the deputies who staff those jails have probably had no training in handling a mental patient,” reminded Sheriff Hammond.

Gino Bennett, the director of Sheriff Hammond’s command staff, bemoaned a huge problem. “When we have to transport a mental prisoner, it takes two of our staff away from the jail. We might find a bed near Memphis, but while we are transporting the patient,” he sighed, “another agency gets the bed. It’s first come, first serve. The amount of time and money the mental segment of the county jail costs the taxpayers is terrible, but this is the end of the line. We can’t send them to the next stop.”

On the day I toured the jail several days ago, there was one prisoner, his face rigidly pressed (by his own strength) in a corner of the cell as he rapidly, loudly, and ceaselessly shouted profanities and other garbage. “That guy is not fit to stand trial over anything, but refuses to take medicine. We can’t force it, or put it in his orange juice, so we listen to him yell and scream constantly,” said one officer. “We are allowed to not let him hurt himself, but the way the system works, he’ll be right here the next time you visit.”

There is not one judge in the Courts Building who wouldn’t agree the poor soul needs help. There is no telling what is going through his mind. “When he takes his medicine for two or three days he is a totally different person. We let him out with enough medicine to get by until he sees his counsellor, but just like a lot of others, he keeps coming back.”

Or as Janna calls them, “the all-over-agains.” She is right about our homeless as well. “Bricks-and-mortar won’t change anything. We, as human beings, need to work harder at caring for other human beings who have a steeper hill they must climb. The way we do it is change a person inside … and that is not inside a jail.”

Charlotte, Tampa, Birmingham and other cities are actively addressing the issues with mental illness and the homeless. In Chattanooga/Hamilton County we just toss them in our over-crowded jail. Our “three sisters” are currently trying to start a Re-entry Initiative and Jana believes there are some grants that will get us on the go. Sheriff Hammond is wary – he’s seen too many good intentions fall by the wayside – but is eager to support a change in our city that would save the Sheriff’s Department and the county thousands of dollars.

If Charlotte has just had a saving of $2.5 million and 648 fewer trips to the emergency room, 292 fewer days in the hospital, 82 percent fewer arrests and 1,050 fewer nights in the jail, our community has little choice but to “break the cycle” and treat our most needed as Christ would. Stay tuned.

Desmond Tutu, the South African holy man who valiantly has fought for the fallen strugglers for the past 85 years, once said, "Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness."

royexum@aol.com

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