Anyplace But Here: The Uncomfortable Convergence Between Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System

In America today, the fastest growing population in prison is not Blacks, Hispanics, or methamphetamine addicts; it is the mentally ill. We are criminalizing our brothers and our sisters, our neighbors and our friends at an alarming and increasing paceand are we not challenged to be their keepers? At a truly visceral level, this problem perplexes me to my very being. I am hurt and disappointed, no, perhaps that is too small an assertion for where I find myself standing as a sheriff. Disappointed is a father when a child forgets to pick up the Legos and you 'find' them at 11:00pm on your way to the bathroom, stuck to the bottom pad of your left foot. I am not disappointed, I am disrespected. That is perhaps closer to the feelings of frustration, rage, anger, insult, and the hundreds of other feelings that boil just beneath the surface of my calm façade as a law enforcement administrator. I've watched legislators pass gun bills that no one really wanted in just one session, yet for twenty years in my state we've tried to reform mental health delivery systems that nearly every state citizen recognizes is necessary, to no avail.If this book helps to add fuel to someone's efforts, if my words provide credence to a person's argument of need for support, or bolsters strength in the observations regarding the importance of mental health reform, great! If something in my stories and narrations cause someone to pay attention and listen to the choir that is likely reading this, giving their real life experiences more credibility, then all my efforts are well worth it. My goal is to champion the message that change must happen. And we can be those champions of change. In our own way, we can help implement and effect change. At the local, regional, state, and national level, our collective voices can cause change. Those who have been fighting this good fight for so long are tiring and it is time to recruit a new battalion of messengers to take up the fight.