{"id":13582,"date":"2013-12-12T18:00:45","date_gmt":"2013-12-12T23:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=13582"},"modified":"2013-12-12T15:53:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-12T20:53:30","slug":"more-on-the-changes-at-st-lawrence-psych-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/12\/12\/more-on-the-changes-at-st-lawrence-psych-center\/","title":{"rendered":"More on the changes at St. Lawrence Psych Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday of this week, members of the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center Task Force<\/a> and other local leaders headed down to Albany<\/a> to urge the state to reconsider its plan to eliminate inpatient beds at the psychiatric facility. Earlier this week, St. Lawrence County Sheriff Kevin Wells told WWNY-TV<\/a> that if the psych center loses those inpatient beds, it will tax local jails (specifically, the St. Lawrence County Jail) as untreated people with mental illness turn to substance abuse.<\/p>\n

Today, North Country Now reports<\/a>, the state Correctional Officers and Police Benevolent Association (NYSCOPBA) is taking a stand against the cut in services with a statewide radio ad. They’re making a related argument, that closing the center (and others like it) will force people to travel great distances to get psychiatric care, create overcrowded conditions in prisons, and cost jobs (the full text of the NYSCOPBA ad is in the article.)<\/p>\n

\"St.<\/a>

St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center in Ogdensburg. Photo: Lizette Haenel<\/p><\/div>\n

In this context, I want to draw your attention to a really interesting article in the Buffalo News<\/a> about the impact cutting inpatient beds can have on prisons and on people with mental illness. Here are a few highlights (although it’s worth reading the whole thing). These are taken directly from the article:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mentally ill inmates nationwide are more likely to become sexual victims while behind bars. Some 6.3 percent of state and federal inmates with \u201cserious psychological distress\u201d reported that they had been victimized by another inmate. That\u2019s nine times greater than the percentage of victims with no mental disorder, according to the Justice Department\u2019s Bureau of Justice Statistics.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Inmates in designated mental health units are involved \u2013 as victims or perpetrators \u2013 in more assaults, contraband violations, self-injuries and other \u201cunusual incidents\u201d than general population inmates in New York\u2019s most dangerous prisons. The rate of unusual incidents among prisoners in six of the system\u2019s specially established mental health units in 2011 was more than three times the rate for Auburn Correctional Facility, a notorious maximum-security prison.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Mentally ill inmates are easily preyed upon by general population inmates. Sometimes called \u201cbugs,\u201d inmates with psychiatric disorders are enlisted to run drugs or fill other dangerous tasks. A mentally ill or developmentally delayed inmate is \u201clike a lamb or a zebra to a lion,\u201d one prison-based mental health worker said. \u201cEasy pickings.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Studies suggest that mentally ill inmates released from prison are more likely to re-offend if they return to drug abuse \u2013 which often accompanies mental illness \u2013 and drop the prescribed medicines they received in prison. The more effective the treatment while they are in prison, the less likely they will cause problems once paroled.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, food for thought. State Sen. Patty Ritchie’s Facebook page says the Gov. Andrew Cuomo (who unexpectedly stopped by Tuesday’s meeting in Albany), will “personally review materials that make a case for the Psych Center staying open.<\/a>” We’ll see what happens with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday of this week, members of the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center Task Force and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5634,4803,5650,12097,13519,4844,9975,5591,12071],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13582"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13590,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13582\/revisions\/13590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}