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MENTAL HEALTH UPDATE - INDEX

March 7, 2006

SAVE THE DATE: MHANYS' LEGISLATIVE DAY MARCH 13, 2006

MHANYS JOINS ORGANIZATIONS REPRESENTING VARYING PERSPECTIVES TO PUBLICLY OPPOSE CIVIL COMMITMENT LEGISLATION: On Monday, MHANYS joined with other mental health advocates and several organizations representing different perspectives to publicly oppose the civil commitment legislation presently under consideration in the NYS Legislature. Such civil commitment legislation would place sexual offenders into the state’s mental health system, after they have been released from prison or jail, for an indefinite amount of time.

As we have articulated in the past, such proposals give us great cause for concern for three main reasons: 1) the safety of mental health patients, many of whom are vulnerable, if they were to be mingled with dangerous individuals within the state psychiatric system; 2) the enormous amount of resources that would be diverted in future years from the Office of Mental Health and Mental Hygiene Legal Service, intended to benefit people with mental illness, and; 3) the stigma that would result for people with psychiatric disabilities by implementing a policy that asserts that all sexual offenders necessarily have a mental illness.

So, MHANYS and other mental health advocates joined with the following organizations to endorse a more effective and less costly approach to prevent sexual offenses from taking place: NYS Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers, New York Civil Liberties Union, NYS Coalition Against Sexual Assault, NYS Defenders Association, Prison Families of New York, and Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York. That alternative approach to civil commitment is best articulated by two of the leading experts dealing with sexual offense, Dr. Richard Hamill, President of the New York State Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers and Anne Liske, Director of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault. Excerpts from their comments follow below.

Comments of Dr. Richard Hamill,
NYS Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers:

Between 1990 and 2000, some 16 states enacted laws which allow for the indeterminate hospitalization of sex offenders after they have served their prison sentences. However, since 2000, NO additional states have enacted civil commitment legislation, and two states, Kansas and Florida, are now giving serious consideration to dismantling their civil commitment programs. The experience of these seventeen states is fairly uniform. These civil commitment laws are fiscal “black holes” that waste taxpayer dollars, and often are actually detrimental, in that they divert funding from programs which could help protect vulnerable populations and result in safer communities. Every state has committed far more sex offenders than initially predicted, and released far fewer sex offenders than anticipated. These programs become very, very expensive warehouses.

In that federal law requires that this population receive treatment, civil commitment programs meet the current standard in the field, a minimum of 31.5 hours of mental health services per week. That is, they provide extensive and expensive treatment to a group of sex offenders who are least likely to benefit from treatment, and who are not even likely to be released back into the community. The housing costs, which range from $100,000 to $180,000 per person per year, do NOT include the costs of this expensive treatment, nor the cost of annual evaluations, nor the legal costs arising from the annual Court reviews. In many programs, these costs total a quarter of a million dollars per person per year. These figures do not include the capital costs involved in creating the civil commitment facilities. In short, they are a huge waste of taxpayer money. Dr. John LaFond, author of the book Preventing Sexual Violence: How Society Should Cope With Sex Offenders, wrote, “Simply put, never has so much money been spent so prodigally on confining so few offenders.”

Typically, civil commitment laws address the dangers posed by less than 2 percent of all the registered sex offenders. What of the danger posed by the other 98 percent? What is the alternative? We need to make our communities safer.

All fifty states struggle with this issue of sex offender management. Some have developed strategies which empirical research has demonstrated to have a positive impact on community safety. We do not have to re-invent the wheel! What should our New York State legislators consider?

First, we know that longer periods of supervision reduce sex offender recidivism. For those offenders for whom this is a life-long disorder, we need a life-long solution. Life-time probation or parole for high risk sex offenders has been demonstrated to reduce recidivism. This calls for an enhancement of existing services. Via careful supervision and information from treatment providers, the probation or parole officer can remove a sex offender from the community when he or she starts to exhibit high risk behavior, often before an offense is committed. The sex offender is separated from the community, going into residential treatment or a correctional facility, before another victim is created. When Maricopa County (Arizona) used this strategy, over sixteen years, the sex offense recidivism rate dropped to less than two percent. Life-time, or indeterminate sentencing is an economical and effective strategy for making our communities safer.

Second, we know that treatment reduces recidivism by 41 to 60 percent. Roughly speaking, their rate of re-offending is cut in half when sex offenders have completed a specialized treatment program. We applaud the authors of the Assembly bill, who included a mandate for sex offenders in the state prison system to receive at least two years of treatment during their incarceration. We also need to provide some subsidy for those sex offenders who reside in the community, to ensure that they too can participate in, and complete, a course of sex offender treatment. According to the sex offender containment model, developed by Kim English for the State of Colorado, and now promoted nationwide by the U.S. Department of Justice Center for Sex Offender Management, the community-based treatment team consists of the therapist, the probation or parole office, and the polygraph examiner. Treatment is guided by the single standard in the field: the Practice Standards and Guidelines for the Evaluation, Treatment and Management of Adult Male Sex Offenders, published by the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers in 2005. It is noteworthy that the federal government (the U.S. Probation Department) will only contract for services with those sex offender treatment providers who agree to conform to this standard. Pursuant to this protocol, in my outpatient treatment program, which serves about 140 adult sex offenders from the Capital District, we use post-conviction polygraph examinations to give us information about the instant offense, the sex offender’s history of sexual offending, and about his compliance with his Conditions of Probation or Parole. For every sex offender in treatment, we have an unrestricted Release of Information which allows us to communicate with the community supervision personnel. Treatment works! For that 70 percent of sex offenders who really want to avoid re-offending, we give them all the tools they need. For the 30 percent who want to keep hurting children and women, we give their probation and parole officers information on the modus operandi, high risk indicators, and other data which result in these individuals being supervised more intensively and effectively. Many are returned to correctional facilities. Either way, treatment works to make our communities safer.

Third, we need a state entity with a mission to develop and maintain a high degree of sex offender management. States such as Colorado and Texas have found this strategy highly effective, in that it facilitates the flow of these cases through investigation, prosecution, incarceration, community supervision and treatment. This chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Effective sex offender management requires professionals from a variety of disciplines and agencies to work cooperatively and collaboratively. We note that the Assembly bill called for the creation of such a Board of Sex Offender Management, with a mandate to identify and implement state-of-the-art strategies as they are developed. We strongly support this measure, although suggest that this Board be free-standing, not under the auspices of a state agency, in order to ensure greater independence, consistency over time, and resilience from the case-of-the-week political pressures.

Fourth, we know that prevention programs, such as the good-touch / bad touch and date-rape prevention programs in our schools and communities are effective. As potential victims, and potential perpetrators, become less confused about appropriate and inappropriate sexual behavior, our communities are made safer. When sex offenses do occur, victims are more likely to participate in the identification and prosecution of their assailants.

Finally, we would like to see a mandate that, upon conviction, sex offenders have a specialized risk assessment prior to sentencing. We believe that it would be helpful for prosecutors and judges to know more about the level of danger posed by a convicted sex offender prior to his or her sentencing. Instead of placing the sexually violent predators into prison and then costly civil commitment programs, with legislative reform, the Courts could sentence these predators to longer prison sentences. The time to identify these sexually dangerous predators is before sentencing, so that longer sentences are an option. We would join the many other states which use more lengthy sentences instead of civil commitment, at an end cost of about $34,000 per person per year, instead of the quarter million dollars per person cost for civil commitment. The community would be kept safe. The money saved by avoiding the creation of a civil commitment program could easily fund each of these five alternatives.

On behalf of the NYS Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers, I respectfully recommend the establishment of commission to study this matter further. We hope that our legislators explore further these other more effective and less costly strategies for making our communities safer.

Comments of Anne Liske,
NYS Coalition Against Sexual Assault:

For two years the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault has been calling for state leadership to develop a strategic plan to address sexual violence. From prevention, to survivor care to sex offender accountability and management, we need a coordinated, blueprint, and the commitment to implement it, to keep our communities healthy and safe.

1. We need to sustain and manage the resources we have to provide services, such as adequate funding for rape crisis and sexual assault examiner programs;
   
2. We need to ensure access to services that make a huge difference for all who need them – including, for example, adequate prison, jail and community-based sex offender treatment for all sex offenders;
   
3. We need to maximize our legal responses to sex crimes by both effectively implementing and enforcing current laws and regulations, and enacting new ones informed by model practices;
   
4. We must commit to widespread prevention and community education efforts, including healthy sexuality curricula in our schools and public campaigns about the high incidence of offending behavior that goes on all around us.

Right now, as we speak the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services has a statewide, multidisciplinary advisory group for a Department of Justice-funded Center for Sex Offender management grant. They are in the middle of a required assessment of the state’s sex offender management practices and policies in order to make change recommendations expected in June. Why are the Executive and Legislative leaders not waiting until this group of diverse experts have issued their report? It would seem to signal that their work is not going to be taken seriously; an enormous amount of professional time and talent to create another report to toss on a shelf.

In the states where civil commitment laws have been enacted and implemented, Florida and Kansas, to name just two, the systems have proved to be disastrous. Florida is appointing a commission to figure out what went wrong. These warehouse approaches represent huge resource drains focused on a small number of offenders, while the vast majority are returning to communities with little if any containment - no safety-planning, no requirements for supervision or treatment and no monitored housing and employment options. Victim services, mental health services, probation and parole, and sex offender treatment programs continue to be under funded and stretched beyond capacity. I hear the giant sucking noise picking up momentum here in New York and I ask why? And the public should too. If leaders are talking about the need for cost containment in the state budget, why replicate a bottomless pit that has failed elsewhere?

With approximately 22,000 sex offenders registered pursuant to New York’s Sex Offender Registration Act and roughly only 20% of those under supervision, it would appear that we aren’t currently adequately mandating and utilizing less costly management options that we have. And we aren’t informing communities effectively about both registered offenders and more important, the large numbers of offenders who never get caught or plea bargain to non-sex offenses, serve time and then return to the community with no accountability for their sex offenses. Why are our policymakers in such a hurry to draw attention to a handful of the worst of the worse yet turn away from the real problem of the far more prevalent and successful offenders all around us?

It took five years to achieve a change in the law that defines course of conduct against children; it took five years to pass the Sexual Assault Reform Act and three more years to complete amendments; it took three years to achieve emergency contraception for rape victims and nearly a decade for passage of state payment of sexual assault forensic exams. Why the rush to enact legislation that is equally important?

In conclusion, a brief lesson from the field for our policymakers. One rape crisis program helps to train its volunteers in collaboration with a sex offender treatment provider. Risky, uncomfortable, difficult and scary as it may be, volunteers who choose to may have a Q&A session with some sex offenders in treatment. What they hear has changed their understanding of the meaning of prevention. These ordinary looking individuals that appear just as plenty of folks we know reveal how they work, how they think and why they are so successful. Basically, it’s because we are all looking past them to a few high profile cases while they groom and game their way to many, many victimizations for which they are rarely if ever caught.

Before driving a triple trailer semi across the state, state leadership needs to “stop, look and listen” just as these community volunteers had the courage to do. They have a golden opportunity to change course without putting on the brakes, establish a non-partisan state sexual violence task force with some authority to think outside the box and make a plan that will make a difference in curbing sexual violence in New York. April is Sexual Assault Awareness month – NYSCASA calls on Governor Pataki, Speaker Silver and Senator Bruno to make real headlines and stand together to announce such an endeavor.

 

IN THE NEWS:

Fight continues over civil commitment. By Jessica Bloustein
WAMC, Northeast Public Radio (Albany), March 6, 2006

In the rush to revamp New York’s sex offender laws before they expire, lawmakers have almost pushed through controversial legislation to civilly commit the most violent convicted sexual predators following prison sentences. But New York State Defenders Association Executive Director Jon Gradess says lawmakers need to slow down.

“If you are going to talk about locking up 5 to 6 thousand people a year, if you are going to spend billions of tax payer dollars on doing it, if you are going to do it with one vision of November in mind, you need to slow down.”

Gradess says November’s election and media coverage of high profile sex offender cases have created a frenzy.

“It’s the polls that are driving the politics. When these things poll high and the concern that you’re coming into an election the movement to do something, even something that is ignorant is overwhelming. So, we don’t have to poll on it, people have been made frightened by the sex offender issue.”

Gradess joined a number of concerned groups that think the State’s approach to civil commitment legislation is misguided. In the last three months, lawmakers have agreed that the safety of children and families is a top priority.

Richard Hamill, head of the New York State Alliance of Sex Offenders Service Providers says those that oppose sex offenders that those who oppose the idea of civil commitment are of the same opinion. But more attention must be paid to forms of treatment that are known to be effective in reducing repeat offenses.

“I think the long term tracking of these offenders is really what is going to make our community safer”

Hamill suggests the number of avenues including treatment in prison, community based treatment and probation after incarceration, and risk assessment prior to sentencing. Hamill says those approaches, in addition to increasing effectiveness, will probably save the state a lot of money. He says only 2% of the population of sex offenders in New York State require civil commitment to keep communities safe.

“We are hearing that parole officers with specialized sex offender case loads have double the case loads they should have and not the resources they need to effectively manage them right now. I try to imagine what it would be like if we had civil commitment needing all that money that that would require and wonder what that would leave for the other 98% of sex offenders who would not be addressed by the civil commitment legislation.”

Mental health advocates in New York, meanwhile, are trying to dispel the notion that all sexual offenders have mental illnesses requiring civil commitment.

Harvey Rosenthal, of the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, says only 5% of convicted sex offenders in New York have diagnosable mental illnesses. Rosenthal says mental health advocates oppose the idea of lumping violent sex offenders in with other individuals in need of civil commitment.

Governor George Pataki has proposed spending $130 million to reconstruct Camp Pharsalia prison in Chenango County to house up to 500 civilly committed convicted sex offenders.

 

Advocates Oppose Proposed Civil Commitment Law.
North Country Gazette, March 7, 2006

ALBANY--- At a news conference Monday, a diverse group of advocates, including advocates for sexual assault victims, mental health providers, and legal experts, charged a proposed civil commitment law is badly misguided, both as a matter of law and public policy.

Acting with extraordinary haste, the Senate and Assembly passed bills in January that authorize the civil commitment of persons who have already served a sentence for certain sex offenses. The bills have been referred to a joint Senate-Assembly conference committee.

A written statement signed by organizations represented at the news conference said that civil commitment of sex offenders is an unproven approach to preventing sex offenses that will divert resources from programs and strategies that have been proven effective in protecting the public against sexual assault crimes.

"The unfortunate irony here," Dr. Richard Hamill said, "is that for a fraction of the extraordinary costs required to finance a civil commitment law we could provide greater protections of the public safety by employing proven sex-offender management strategies." Dr. Hamill estimates the cost of committing an individual for a year in a New York State psychiatric facility may well reach $250,000. This figure does not include the state's legal costs related to civil commitment proceedings.

"New York State has a wealth of knowledgeable, dedicated professionals who work on a daily basis with children and adults affected by sexual assault and with those who have committed sex offenses," said Anne Liske, executive director, NYS Coalition Against Sexual Assault. "As we work to create safe communities, let us use their collective wisdom to build on the foundations we have for effective, lasting solutions, rather than reactive, expensive quick fixes that look tough, but over time drain our resources."

The debate in Albany over the civil commitment legislation has been driven by several notorious and widely reported sex crimes. In the conference committee deliberations, legislators have referred to the criminal defendants in these cases as "sexual predators" who are the "worst of the worst".

However, the organizations represented at today's news conference said the legislation defines "sexual predators" in a manner that is imprecise and overly broad, so broad that sex involving a 21-year-old and his 16-year-old girlfriend, as well as non-contact crimes such as possession of child pornography and video voyeurism could subject a person to a civil commitment petition. The Senate bill would make youthful offenders subject to a civil commitment proceeding.

"These bills are radically overbroad and the debate surrounding them is partisan, polarized, and political. Civil commitment represents an appallingly bad idea that threatens an enormous diversion of state funds while undermining more successful proven techniques to protect public safety," said Jonathan Gradess, executive director of the New York State Defenders Association. Robert A. Perry, legislative director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said "The proposed civil commitment law has the same flaws as New York's notoriously unjust drug sentencing laws: a poorly defined criminal predicate and an extraordinary grant of discretion to prosecutors. The authority for abuse is great; the protections of public safety are illusory."

Mental health advocates who participated in the news conference voiced serious concerns that civil commitment legislation would sap resources from mental health programs and services funded through the state Office of Mental Health. They also objected strongly to the "sexual predator" definition, which they said is based on erroneous and stigmatizing notions of mental illness. The legislation authorizes prosecutors to bring a civil commitment petition against a person with a "mental abnormality" -- a term not recognized within the medical and psychiatric communities -- that makes an individual more "likely" to commit a sex offense in the future.

Michael Seereiter, director of policy with the Mental Health Association in New York State, said "the debate over civil commitment of sexual offenders has promoted the fundamental misconception that all individuals with mental illness are sexually dangerous. Mental health advocates contend that the proposed legislation would not only lead to wrongful civil commitment prosecutions -- it would set back by decades the movement to de-stigmatize mental illness."

Groups opposing the proposed civil commitment law are the Mental Health Association in New York State, NYS Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers, NYS Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services, New York Civil Liberties Union, NYS Coalition Against Sexual Assault, NYS Defenders Association, Prison Families of New York and Prisoners' Legal Services of New York.

 

Call to confine assailed. By Rick Karlin
Albany Times Union, March 7, 2006

Civil libertarians, others compare plan to indefinitely detain chronic sex offenders to Rockefeller Drug Laws

ALBANY -- Civil confinement will prove to be another version of the Rockefeller Drug Laws -- unrealistic penalties passed amid fear and hysteria, only to be dismantled decades later when proved unworkable -- a group of activists charged on Monday.

"We'll be back in this room to rethink the unjust Pataki-Silver sex offender laws," said Robert Perry, legislative director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Along with taking aim at Gov. George Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Perry also blamed Senate Republicans for pushing for civil confinement.

Civil libertarians, mental health advocates and others warned that plans to confine, or indefinitely detain, chronic sex offenders after they serve their prison terms would lead to a costly morass in which thousands of people could essentially be locked up for life.

They charged that Pataki, the Senate and Assembly are rushing ahead with a civil confinement plan in order to get something done by November's elections. Legislative seats are all up for election this year. Pataki is not running for re-election but is considering a presidential bid in 2008.

"We are disturbed at the speed with which it has come forward," said Jonathan Gradess, executive director of the New York State Defenders Association. "It's not an accident that we are coming up on November and an election."

"There seems to be a rush to create this legislation and get it out there," added Richard Hamill, president of the state Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers.

The Senate and Assembly have convened a joint conference committee on civil confinement and Pataki has proposed converting a minimum security prison in Pharsalia, Chenango County, into a civil confinement center that could hold some 500 sex offenders who have served their prison terms.

Working on the idea that persistent offenders are sick and cannot be cured, 16 other states have instituted laws to hold such people after prison.

In addition to civil libertarians' concerns, mental health advocates worry such a plan would drain resources from other programs and impose yet another stigma on people with mental illness.

"It falsely connects sex offenders with mental illness," said Harvey Rosenthal, executive director of New York State Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services.

Others noted the actual number of chronic, incurable sex offenders is lower than people think.

"It's the polls that are driving the politics," said Gradess. "People have been made frightened by the sex offender issue."

The issue, he added, has "been used to punish one house or another."

In the past, Senate Republicans have criticized the Assembly Democrats' as being slow to act on the issue. Last year, when Westchester County District Attorney Jeanine Pirro said she would challenge Hillary Rodham Clinton for the U.S. Senate, she made her stance against sex offenders a cornerstone of her campaign. Pirro is now seeking the Republican nod for attorney general, but by getting behind a civil confinement law, Democrats may have neutralized a big issue for Pirro.

Senate Republicans on Monday said they were proud to back civil confinement laws and, if anything, progress has been too slow.

"The Senate has been passing this bill for 20 years. How can they say it's been moving too fast?" asked Mark Hansen, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, R-Brunswick.

"The governor has proposed this for seven years," added Chauncey Parker, Pataki's Division of Criminal Justice Services director, another potential GOP candidate for attorney general.

"I don't think that anybody is rushing," Parker added, noting that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the concept.

Joseph Lentol, D-Brooklyn, who is leading the Assembly's talks on civil confinement, said progress on a law may even be stalled.

"We're actually at a standstill, so I don't know how we're moving too fast," said Lentol, explaining that the Senate and Assembly are at odds over how many prisoners might be released under intensive parole supervision rather than into civil confinement. The Assembly favors such a plan but the Senate doesn't, he said.

 

Groups oppose 'warehousing' sex offenders. By Cara Matthews
Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin, March 7, 2006

Long-term confinement seen as 'fiscal black hole'

ALBANY - A coalition of non-profit groups on Monday called pending legislation to lock up violent sex offenders an "appallingly bad idea" that is expensive and will not help the large number of people who can be treated so public safety is protected.

"These warehouse approaches represent huge resource drains focused on a small number of offenders while the vast majority are returning to communities with little, if any, containment - no safety planning, no requirements for supervision of treatment and no monitored housing and employment options," said Anne Liske, executive director of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault.

Victim assistance, mental-health services, probation and parole, and sex-offender treatment programs are under-funded and stretched beyond capacity, she said.

"I hear the giant sucking noise picking up momentum here in New York and I ask why, and the public should, too. If leaders are talking about the need for cost containment in the state budget, why replicate a bottomless pit that has failed elsewhere?" Liske said.

The news conference came as lawmakers continue attempts to reconcile differences between sex offender civil confinement bills that passed in the GOP-led Senate and Democrat-controlled Assembly. A conference committee meeting on the matter was postponed from Monday to Wednesday.

The drive to further protect the public from sex offenders began after a 7-year-old New Jersey girl, Megan Kanka, was killed in 1994 by a convicted sex offender who had recently been released from prison and lived across the street. New York law now requires that sex offenders be registered with the state and their whereabouts be made public.

"Our position is we think the cost of public safety far outweighs the issue of how much it costs to house sex offenders," said Craig Miller, a spokesman for Sen. Dale Volker, R-Depew, Erie County, co-chairman of the conference committee.

The Assembly believes civil commitment is only part of a solution to the sex offender problem, said Sisa Moyo, a spokeswoman for Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, D-Manhattan. Other components include tougher sentences for new offenders and more assistance for victims.

"We have always said that civil confinement (alone) is not the magic bullet," she said.

Assemblyman Joseph Lentol, D-Brooklyn, said his house listened to criticisms and decided civil confinement should be done in a narrow way.

Sixteen other states have some form of civil commitment, and a few are considering dismantling their systems because they are not satisfied with them, said Richard Hamill of the New York State Alliance of Sex Offender Service Providers.

He called sex offender facilities "fiscal black holes" and said they address the dangers posed by less than 2 percent of all registered sex offenders. The cost of committing someone in New York for a year could reach $250,000, and that does not include the state's legal costs, he said.

The sex-offender bills are "overbroad and the debate surrounding them is partisan, polarized and political," said Jonathan Gradess, executive director of the New York State Defenders Association. He called the legislation "an appallingly bad idea."

Robert Perry of the New York Civil Liberties Union said the sex offender laws have a "poorly defined criminal predicate" and give "extraordinary" discretion to prosecutors.

Mental health advocates who spoke Monday said the debate to civilly commit sex offenders has unfairly connected sex offenders with the mentally ill and promoted a misconception that mentally ill people are sexually dangerous.

As little as 5 percent of sex offenders have mental illness, said Harvey Rosenthal, head of the New York State Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services

WHAT IT MEANS

Both state houses passed legislation early in the session to confine sex offenders who are still considered dangerous after their prison terms have ended. Gov. George E. Pataki, a longtime proponent of such a law, forced the issue last summer when he used existing law to prevent dangerous sex offenders from reentering the community. The courts have ruled that the practice violates due-process rights.

Pataki has proposed a $130 million project to raze a prison in Pharsalia, Chenango County, and replace it with a facility to house 500 dangerous sex offenders.

 

Civil commitment opponents gather in Albany. By Bill Lambdin
WNYT TV (Albany), March 6, 2006

Critics say legislation would cause more problems than solve

One idea that already has strong support in Albany involves locking up sex offenders after they've served their prison terms.

But Monday at the state Capitol, some people argued that civil commitment would be a very big mistake.

“As with the Rockefeller drug laws, the proposed civil commitment law creates an enormous potential for abuse,” said Robert Perry of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

It took 30 years, but the state Legislature has backed far away from the harsh Rockefeller drug laws of the 1970s. The mental health, victims’ advocates, prison family and public defender representatives who gathered Monday say a civil commitment law would be the same type of drastic mistake.

“The civil commitment legislation is a bureaucratic nightmare waiting to happen. In no way will it truly make our community safer or bring justice or healing to sexual assault survivors,” said victims' advocate Anne Liske.

What the governor favors and the Legislature are seriously considering would set up internment facilities where sex offenders would be sent after they completed their prison terms. The facilities would be run by the state Office of Mental Health and would, in theory, treat the illness.

However, in states where this has already been tried very few people get released. It would be a lock-up to prevent people from committing future crimes—throwing away the key for people involved in a heinous category of crime.

“These two bills are both fundamentally defective in the provision that apply to giving lawyers to these people,” said Jonathan Gradess of the New York State Defenders Association.

These opponents say civil commitment would drain money from treatment and supervision of the many sex offenders who would not be sent to the camps. In addition they argue that as the legislation is proposed, overzealous prosecutors or judges could commit people who should not be, potentially sending them away for a lifetime.

 

Bed-'panning' the Post: The N.Y. Hospital Crisis. Letter to the Editor
NY Post, February 27, 2006

THE ISSUE: The Post's report on New York state hospitals' empty-bed problem.

Carl Campanile states that, on any given day, some 31 percent of all hospital beds across New York are empty ("Scalpel Poised for State's $ick Hospitals," Feb. 20).

While this is a provocative statistic, a critical issue getting far less attention pertains to the availability of acute-care psychiatric beds within those same community hospitals that are now being considered for "right-sizing."

Without these beds, New Yorkers are likely to be diverted to more costly programs and services, including state hospitals, homeless shelters and correctional facilities.

New Yorkers should demand that the New York State Commission on Health Care Facilities in the 21st Century and David Sandman, its director, also consider adjustments to the availability of hospital beds and become familiar with the data related to availability and use of behavioral health care beds across New York.

Lauri Cole
Executive Director
N.Y. State Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare
Albany

 

AARP, mental health community fighting to keep drug coverage. By Chris Martinson
Legislative Gazette, March 6, 2006

A coalition of organizations for the elderly, disabled and poor ? representing more than 600,000 people across New York ? is opposing the governor’s proposal to eliminate drug coverage for those eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare-D.

These individuals, made up of seniors, the mentally ill and the impoverished with extensive health care needs, depend on this “wrap around” coverage, which requires state Medicaid to pay for prescription drugs not covered under federal Medicare-D.

In Gov. George E. Pataki’s proposed budget, wrap-around coverage for these “dual eligibles” would come to an end. As of July 1, individuals relying on both programs would lose state funding, along with many of their vital medications.

The organizations, including the AARP, Medicare Rights Center and Mental Health Association of New York State, are now urging legislators to make sure the current state coverage does not end this summer.

Ann Hardiman, the executive director of the New York State Association of Community and Residential Agencies, or NYSACRA, said it is New York’s most vulnerable citizens, those poor and disabled, that count on the wrap around to survive.

“Without the wrap around,” she said, “the person needs to pay out-of-pocket the entire cost of the prescription …individuals will not be able to afford this.” This is “appalling treatment of the most vulnerable citizens of New York,” who take an average five medications a day, she said.

The result of ending the wrap around, she said, “can lead to further complications – crisis warranting additional medical treatment, emergency room visits and hospitalizations ultimately costing more than the prescription drugs.”