Published in The Post-Star (A1)
12/04/05
Editor's Note: This is the first of a two-part series on services for the mentally ill.
For people with mental illness, the criminal justice system can be a nightmare. In some cases, it also can be a lifesaver.
Nancy Henthorn found this out when her son Chad, now 33, had a mental breakdown that landed him in jail.
"Oh boy, my son, he was a great son," she said. "And he's back being it ... but it's taken a lot of advocates. It's been a long road."
The Henthorns' story illustrates a problem that affects millions of Americans. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that one in five adults suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or clinical depression.
Some of them are behind bars.
About 16 percent of inmates in U.S. prisons and jails are mentally ill, according to a 1999 study by the U.S. Justice Department. Only 60 percent of the mentally ill inmates reported receiving treatment during their incarceration.
"There are too many mentally ill people in the system, and too little known about it," said Robert Corliss, director of the New York state chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. "There are no standards for mental health services, and the system at the state level seems to be very overwhelmed."
Although most prisons in New York have some form of mental health services, they rely on self-reporting by inmates of previously diagnosed psychiatric disorders. This doesn't always work.
"A lot of guys going into state prison don't want to acknowledge having a mental health issue because it's a sign of weakness, and it makes them more vulnerable," Corliss said.
Others might not even know they are sick.
'I heard it in his voice'
When Chad's brain betrayed him, he was a strong, successful young man -- a husband and new father who directed ships into the Port of Houston and had an exemplary service record in the Coast Guard.
Around 1998, he started sinking.
His mother isn't sure what triggered the change. It could have been a concussion from rugby or the head wound he got when someone clobbered him with a beer mug in a bar fight, she said. The stress of working three-day shifts with little sleep could have aggravated these physical factors.
Whatever the cause, there could be no denying the effects.
"It progressed almost like a book," she remembers. "At first, I didn't believe his wife. But as time went on, I heard it in his voice."
Chad became increasingly obsessive and secretive. He accused his wife of trying to drive him crazy by writing things on the walls. Then he started trying to hack into CIA files on the computer. He thought he was a spy with a computer chip in his brain.
"It was weird -- and scary," Nancy said.
He was diagnosed with "a psychotic disorder leaning toward schizophrenia," she said, but he refused to take medication.
By 28, Chad had lost his job in Texas and was living in Lake George, where he worked odd jobs that never lasted long. His hallucinations grew worse and were amplified by heavy drinking. He became afraid of everything, including sleep.
He stopped talking to his mother and started talking to himself.
"I can only speculate on what he was really feeling," Nancy said. "All he can tell me is that he was hearing voices at that time. He doesn't remember anything else now."
In 2001, Nancy got a call from Chad's friends. He had rolled his truck while driving drunk a few days earlier, and they hadn't seen him since.
"They said, 'We think Chad's disappeared.' I didn't believe it, but slowly, over time, you realize," she said.
He was missing for almost two years.
'A cry for help'
Nancy refused to give up. She called missing persons hotlines and hired a private investigator but couldn't track him down. Occasionally, clues to his location arrived in the mail -- fines, tickets and hospital bills issued in various cities.
"He had a trail of aliases and petty theft," she said. "But he kept using my address as his home address. It was like a cry for help."
The next time his mother saw him, in August 2002, Chad was in Miami-Dade county jail, charged with stabbing another man in the arm with an ice pick. He called home to ask for $750 bail.
Nancy was afraid he would disappear again if she bailed him out. She was determined to get him into a treatment program and get him help.
"When you get a mentally ill person in the court system, you've got to make the courts aware that they don't belong there," she said. "I'm not saying they didn't commit a crime, but wouldn't it be better to get them healed and out of the criminal system forever?"
She left him there for nearly a year, hoping to get answers about when he might get treatment, but, finally, she gave up on the system. Chad pleaded guilty to a felony, was sentenced to time served and went back to Lake George in the summer of 2003.
His mother knew it was only a matter of time before he stepped outside the law again.
That fall, Chad set off fireworks through the window of his apartment building "because he thought it was pretty," Nancy said. The curtains caught fire, and he was arrested for arson. He also faced other charges, including trespassing and vandalizing a cemetery, when he came before Judge Keith Dolbeck in Ticonderoga County Court.
He was lucky to find someone else on his side.
Dolbeck had been Chad's high school science teacher and football coach, said Nancy, and she praises him for refusing to "put a Band-aid" on the problem. He sent Chad to Rochester Forensic Unit for three months of intensive psychiatric treatment. It was there that Chad finally agreed to take medication, and within six months he was significantly healthier.
"Thank God we had a judge who cared," Nancy said.
In Dolbeck's view, he was just doing his job.
"As a judge, you're not just a hammer for law enforcement -- you're there to make sure that people's rights are protected. And obviously, if someone is mentally ill, you're their advocate as well," he said. "When someone doesn't have all their faculties, they need even more protection. It's critical that they understand what they're being charged with."
'A very big burden'
In Warren County Jail, between 10 and 15 percent of inmates have mental health issues, Sheriff Larry Cleveland estimated. The jail recently established a contract with the Behavioral Health Services unit of Glens Falls Hospital to give inmates access to a licensed psychiatrist for two half-days each week. A clinical counselor is on site full time.
The jail's medical staff usually recognizes mental illness, although it has not been specifically trained to treat it, Cleveland said. With the signature of two physicians, prisoners with serious mental health problems might be sent to inpatient psychiatric centers in either Utica or Rochester.
"The identification and treatment they get in this facility is probably more than they would get on the outside," Cleveland said. "But this is not the place to do it. That's putting a very big burden on taxpayers to provide mental health services that should be provided through other agencies, not us."
A year and a half after Chad was released from the psychiatric unit, medication has stabilized his brain and he is slowly rebuilding his life. He recently moved out of a group home into his own apartment in Saranac Lake and has a job at the local marina.
He doesn't remember most of his psychotic past, and he did not want to talk about it directly, but he gave his mother permission to share his story.
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