At the national level are there any efforts underway to help the mentally ill who are in our prisons and jails?
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment Crime Reduction Act was signed into law by President Bush on Oct. 30, 2004. Sponsored by Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio), it calls for federal grants to train criminal justice and mental health personnel in handling mentally ill offenders, funding mental health courts and alternative sentencing programs, and improving mental health and substance abuse care to those who are incarcerated and those who are re-entering the community. To finance these grants, the bill authorizes $50 million to be appropriated for fiscal year 2005 to the Department of Justice and “such sums as may be necessary” until 2009. The bill expands on America’s Law Enforcement and Mental Health Project, a bill providing grants for establishing mental health courts that was also sponsored by Sen. DeWine and signed by President Clinton in September 2000. Currently in referral to the Senate Judiciary Committee is legislation entitled The Community Safety Thr
