Mayor: $130M to revamp NYC jails for mentally ill

[SummerSnow]

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/9d84dfac589d40dfbf82888d246c2c61/mayor-130m-revamp-nyc-jails-mentally-ill

By JAKE PEARSON
Dec. 1, 2014 10:58 PM EST

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York City mayor wants to spend $130 million over four years to overhaul how the nation's most populous city deals with mentally ill and drug-addicted suspects, diverting many to treatment instead of the city's troubled Rikers Island jail complex.

Mayor Bill de Blasio's plans, to be announced Tuesday, are based on the recommendations of a task force he appointed following a series of reports by The Associated Press detailing problems at Rikers, including the deaths of two inmates suffering from serious mental illness.

The reforms are aimed largely at inmates with mental-health or substance-abuse problems who repeatedly end up in jail on minor offenses because there is nowhere else for them to go.

The changes, which do not require city council approval, include offering stepped-up training for police to identify such suspects, using drop-off treatment centers for low-level offenders and allowing more leeway for judges to order supervised release and treatment instead of jail. They draw on reforms already tried in Seattle, Washington D.C., and Louisville, Kentucky.

[shenmue]

1. About time

[Marrah_G]

2. This should have been done nationwide long ago.

Turning people with an illness into felons with little chance of regaining a real life once they are well is no way to treat the most vulnerable of our citizens.

[Rex]

3. Okay time to go to bed, I read that at first as

Mayor: $130M to revamp NYC jailed for being mentally ill.