A grieving father determined to change our system speaks out, a detailed examination of what’s happening in Pennsylvania since that state began shuttering its mental hospitals, and an alarming expose by The New York Times about Africans with psychiatric conditions, who are being chained for years in “prayer camps,” are three recent stories that I want to call to your attention.
James Cornick sent me an e-mail describing the ordeal that he went through trying to get meaningful help for his son, Jeff, who ended his life in a jail cell. James told me that his son’s death could have been prevented and he was going to do his best to demand county officials improve local services. A reporter with the Des Moines Register happened to hear James telling his story and the result was a moving newspaper account: Grieving Father: Stop Jailing People For Mental Illness.
Within two months of the death, Jim Cornick started standing up publicly, demanding that society stop sending people to jail for being sick. The retired Meredith Corp. magazine publisher has met with the sheriff, the police chief, judges, lawyers, probation officers, county supervisors, legislators and the governor.
He doesn’t vent anger or claim that his son was harmless. He speaks calmly, offering specific proposals:
• Families should be able to tell mental health professionals what they see happening in the lives of their ill relatives, he says. Commitment laws must be changed to make it easier for families to get patients in for help and to keep them in treatment for more than a few days.
• Police and jail staff members should have more training in handling those with mental illness. People shouldn’t have to wait weeks or months for assistance. And if police come across someone whom a judge has ordered into treatment, the officers should automatically be notified of that order so they can take the person to a hospital.
His normally steady voice shakes when he is asked what he’s trying to accomplish. “I feel like maybe I can make a difference, move the needle a little bit, raise some awareness,” he said in an interview at his South of Grand neighborhood home.
His son didn’t mean to hurt anyone — including their family — by committing suicide, Cornick said. “He did it because he’d given up hope. He’d worked damned hard to get better, and he just couldn’t.” (read more here.)