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Can Utah move from shameful to hopeful for mentally ill in jail?

Deseret News - 5/28/2017

SALT LAKE CITY -

Next month in New Jersey, the 2017 graduating class of Princeton High School will say goodbye to the red brick school and pass under the distinctive gothic archway that bears the hopeful phrase: "Live to Learn and Learn to Live."

And so it was more than 40 years ago when Diane Prigge made that walk, leaving with promise and entering a world she hoped would bring happiness. Diane's parents today live about five miles from the school, past Carnegie Lake and just off a circular drive dotted with townhouses fronted by well-kept yards.

Just can't talk about it, said her father, now in his 80s and still showing the sadness that comes with a lifetime of worry over a daughter who suffered. Diane first began showing signs of mental illness while in high school, and it would get to her over the years.

Her parents tried to help, but at one point there was a conflict and she headed west. Now estranged but not wanting to further upset any relationship with their daughter, her parents opted not to engage the conversation or family history other than offering a few brief thoughts with Deseret News reporter Daphne Chen on the front doorstep of their home last week.

Families feel the brunt of mental illness, many willing to sacrifice everything they can for suffering children or parents. Yet so many feel a frustration that builds toward hopelessness. Especially when adults end up in the criminal justice system, as Diane did after coming west, landing in Arizona, and ultimately over the years finding her way to Utah. Marriage and divorce are part of her history. But now at age 62 the diagnosed psychosis and bipolar disorder continue to take a toll.

Living in Provo, Diane used to complain about her neighbors, writing about them on Facebook. At one point the trouble led a neighbor to take out a restraining order. She was eventually evicted from her Provo apartment. Last year when she was accused of attempting to break back into her old apartment, she was arrested on criminal trespass charges. A few days later, Orem added a few more minor charges - criminal mischief and interfering with an arresting officer - the kind of troubling behavior that comes from a troubled soul.

That landed her in jail, before a judge, and eventually on a waitlist for treatment at the Utah State Hospital because she doesn't have the capacity to coherently respond and understand what she's facing. So she and dozens of others like her are trapped in the criminal justice system. They need help. Their families need hope.

As journalists Chen and McKenzie Romero reported last week, it has been eight months since the judge ordered treatment for Diane from the state hospital. One can argue about whether she should have been arrested in the first place. That's another symptom of the troubling intersection of individual rights, inadequate mental health care and our criminal justice system.

But letting someone with mental illness sit in jail because there isn't a place for her to be treated and monitored, because there is not enough money, or enough beds, or enough psychiatrists, or enough will is unacceptable. It needs to become a priority. If it doesn't, then it really does mean we are not the compassionate people we like to believe we are. It requires our time, our money, our engagement and our outrage.

As the Deseret News reported: "Last year, Utah judges sent 148 mentally ill defendants to the Utah State Hospital for treatment, up from 88 in 2011. They also ordered nearly 1,000 mental competency evaluations, up from 745 in 2012."

That means the problem is growing.

Every family has a story: A letter written by James Norman Sr. in March to his son's attorney reveals the personal human cost to the problem. The father was pleading for the attorney to reach out to a judge about his son's condition:

"Despite being found incompetent last fall, and the consequent standing order that Judge Johnson issued last December or November for James to go back into the state hospital, nothing has changed. He remains in isolation with no privileges, and won't talk to anyone. In addition he is losing weight and looking worse and worse.

"He is too mentally ill to communicate or comply with the rules, which would allow him to gain privileges, such as commissary or visits. When I tried to visit him a couple of weeks ago, the front desk at the jail said he was allowed visits, but the guards at his station said he was too unmanageable and would not bring him to the visiting area."

May and June is a wonderful time for many families. Preparing for school graduations and the promise of what's next brings its own kind of hope, whether here in Utah or across the country at Princeton High School in New Jersey. We relate to those words: "Live to Learn and Learn to Live."

It's time to learn that human cost is far more expensive than financial cost when it comes to addressing this problem.

Doug Wilks is editor of the Deseret News.