Pennsylvania Program Aids Mentally Ill

A program aimed at improving the re-entry process for mentally ill offenders has reduced recidivism in the Pittsburgh area to only 9.9 percent, reported The New York Times. The program, sponsored by the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, not only has been successful but has gained bipartisan

The program is offered to both county and jail inmates who, upon release, go with program staff to Kmart and are provided $200 to buy clothes and other necessities such as toothpaste. "The most important thing we do is lower our clients' anxiety," said Amy Kroll, the program's founder and the director of forensic services for the Allegheny County Department of Human Services.

Next, staff take the former inmates to the medical assistance office to obtain their psychiatric medications, then go to the Social Security office to apply for supplementary Social Security benefits because of their illness. The ex-offenders are also offered prearranged housing and a bus pass.

The program initially began as a consent decree because of chronic overcrowding in the Allegheny County Jail and the lack of treatment for inmates with mental illness. But Kroll turned it into a comprehensive program for mentally ill offenders that now includes a mental health court, a drug court and a re-entry component as well as the part that helps state prison inmates.

The State Senate Budget and Finance Committee has recommended that the program serve as a model in the state as a way to save money. The average cost is $3,000 a person, well below the national average of $25,000 a year for a prison inmate, Kroll said. The money comes from the county, the state and several foundations. "I think until now, many people ... unfortunately viewed this kind of program as not law and order, as being weak on crime," said state Sen. Jane Clare Orie (R). "But when we show them that it saves money and lessens the number of people who commit new crimes, then that's a sell that works for them."