|
|
|
Two New Laws Provide Important Justice Reform |
Two important bills correcting injustice in the criminal justice system have passed Congress and await the President's signature. One bill would reduce the disproportionate numbers of mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system, and the other bill speeds the process of testing DNA to both solve crimes and exonerate the innocent.
Mentally Ill Offenders
Senator Mike DeWine's (R-OH) Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (S. 1194) provides incentives for the criminal justice, juvenile justice, mental health, and substance abuse treatment systems to work together at each level of government to establish a network of services for the non-violent offender with mental illness. The grants can be used to establish mental health courts, provide in-jail treatment and transitional services, as well as provide additional training for mental health personnel, police, judges, prosecutors, and corrections officials.
This bill addresses one of the most serious, and largely ignored, problems in the criminal justice system. There are three times as many men and women with mental illness in U.S. prisons as in mental hospitals. The largest forensic mental health facility in the world is the Los Angeles County Jail! This is a horrible situation. It was not caused by the prison system, but rather by, the well-intentioned effort to de-institutionalize the mentally ill. When our state mental hospitals were emptied, however, there were not sufficient resources allocated to treat the patients in community facilities. Without access to community treatment, the mentally ill simply roamed the streets until the police responded to their erratic behavior by arresting them.
By default, prisons have become the dumping ground for the mentally ill. Prisons are dangerous and damaging places, and the mentally ill are often victimized and exploited by other prisoners. In response to intimidation, some mentally ill prisoners withdraw into their cells, where the isolation makes their symptoms worse. Others strike out and are isolated in solitary confinement, where they are less likely to receive psychiatric care. The symptoms of mental illness often bewilder prison officials who employ the easiest, but often most damaging solutions, when handling them. Simply knocking such prisoners out with strong antipsychotic drugs and warehousing them in their cells, which can push them over the edge into acute psychosis.
"As a former prosecutor," Senator DeWine said, "I have seen the cycle of non-violent, mentally ill offenders who are arrested and put in jail repeatedly. This bill offers hope to those people by creating a chance for them to receive the treatment they need to break the cycle of arrest, release, and re-arrest. I look forward to this bill becoming law so that this unique approach can treat the mentally ill and reduce crime."
Innocence Protection and DNA Evidence
The Justice For All Act (H.R. 5107) combines several important bills: the Innocence Protection Act, the DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act and the Victims Rights Act.
The innocence protection section of the bill provides death row prisoners greater access to DNA testing that could prove their innocence. In the last few years, 111 people in 25 states have been released after spending years on death row for crimes they did not commit. Fortunately, their exonerations have led to over 50 convictions of the real perpetrators.
Sponsored by Rep. William Delahunt (D-MA) and co-authored with Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL), the new measure also provides grants to improve the legal representation for indigent defendants in capital cases. Experts acknowledge, one leading cause of wrongful convictions is the inexperience or incompetence of lawyers assigned by the court.
"The search for truth is a fallible process and mistakes happen," said Delahunt, who tried dozens of murder cases as Norfolk County District Attorney for more 20 years. "Think of the human costs when an innocent person is executed or spends long years in jail. Imagine the scars when a victim waits years to know the identity of their assailant. We are not talking about hypothetical scenarios. We are talking about real people, ordinary Americans facing the most extreme miscarriages of justice."
The DNA sexual assault justice section of the bill (originally S. 152 sponsored by Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE)) authorizes $755 million over the next five years to help deal with the backlog of more than 300,000 rape kits and other crime scene analysis. The National Center for Victims of Crimes describes it as "one of the most important rape prevention bills in history."
In addition, the bill includes a victims rights section (originally S. 2329 sponsored by Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ)), which statutorily gives victims the right to be present in a courtroom; the right to be notified of a trial; the right to be heard; the right to know when an attacker is released; the right to restitution if ordered by a judge; and the right to be treated with fairness and respect.
Bipartisan Support of Justice Reform
The passage of these important bills is the result of hard work by a bi-partisan cross-section of leaders in both houses. Particular praise is due the authors of the bills and Rep. James Sensenbrenner and Sen. Orrin Hatch (chairmen of the Judiciary committees in their respective houses), who helped diverse interests come together and find common ground on these important issues. While the press would have us believe that partisan rancor dominated this session of Congress, these two bills are evidence that both sides of the aisle can cooperate and accomplish serious work on justice reform.
In His service,
Pat Nolan, President
Justice Fellowship
Resources
"Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project of the Council of State Governments"
"Ill-Equipped: U.S. Prisons and Offenders with Mental Illness" |
|
