Mentally Ill

Local jails have become the de facto warehouses of the severely mentally ill, and those who deal with the mentally ill in crisis are too often men and women who wear guns and badges. Of course, it was not supposed to turn out this way. Those released from hospitals, and those who would once have been confined to such places, were to have been treated in community-based mental health clinics. These clinics were never built.

Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved a plan Tuesday to study tearing down part of the Men's Central Jail and replacing it with a facility designed for mentally ill and drug-addicted prisoners. The new facility could save the county millions of dollars and offer inmates a better chance of rehabilitation, according to Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who proposed the idea. Yaroslavsky has opposed earlier plans to spend up to $1.4 billion to renovate or replace the Men's Central Jail and the adjacent Twin Towers Jail.

Supporters of housing for the county's mentally ill celebrated Thursday as a $2.8-million complex of one-bedroom apartments on Lewis Road was officially dedicated. Villa Calleguas, a rambling series of 24 apartments surrounding a barn-like community building, is designed to help 23 mentally disabled adults live on their own with limited supervision. A manager will live in one of the units.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky wants the board to consider tearing down part of the troubled Men's Central Jail and building a facility to house mentally ill and drug addicted inmates, which he says would offer all prisoners a better chance of rehabilitation while potentially saving the county millions of dollars. Supervisors have been struggling over what to do with their aging and overcrowded jails for more than a year. Sheriff Lee Baca, who oversees the nation's largest jail system, initially called for spending nearly $1.4 billion to replace or renovate the Men's Central Jail and the adjacent Twin Towers, but the price tag was more than supervisors would accept.

The Ventura County Chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill will host its annual candlelight walk and vigil at 6:45 p.m. Sunday. Participants are invited to gather across from St. Paschal Baylon Catholic Church, 155 E. Janss Road, in Thousand Oaks. They will walk to the church, where Jerry Heyer will conduct a service.

On Skid Row, the mentally ill struggle through life with varying degrees of effectiveness. Some manage to find food and warmth at nonprofit shelters for the homeless. Others sleep in doorways and go hungry. Some try vainly to cope with their paranoia and hallucinations by taking street drugs. In the worst cases, they keep only tenuous contact with reality; tattered, confused, they wander listlessly or step out into the streets in front of traffic.

Andrew Posner has been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, lived in special homes for the mentally ill, and undergone every imaginable type of psychotherapy. Still, doctors could offer no explanation for the deep depression that had cast a shadow on his life since the age of 9. Five years ago, though, Posner, had his first glimmer of hope. A doctor discovered a chemical imbalance in his brain and told him the condition was controllable with a drug called lithium.

Mary's 27-year-old son has been trapped for most of his adult life in a cycle of hospitalization in mental institutions and eviction from board-and-care homes because of his disruptive behavior. He suffers from both schizophrenia and manic depression, which have made him difficult to handle, even for his own family. "It sounds horrible, but one time I got him blankets to sleep on the streets," said Mary, who asked that her full name be withheld.

Go to a busy street in your community and count the next 25 adolescents who walk, bike, skateboard, stroll or saunter past. Odds are that two of those 25 kids (8.3% to be exact) would own up to having experienced 14 or more days in the last month that he or she considered "mentally unhealthy," according to a comprehensive report on the mental health of American youth issued Thursday. Between 2005 and 2010, roughly 2 million American adolescents between 12 and 17 acknowledged that for more than half of the previous month, they routinely had felt sad, angry, disconnected, stressed out, unloved or possibly willing to hurt themselves -- or others.

SACRAMENTO - The state will send dozens of new agents into California neighborhoods this summer to confiscate nearly 40,000 handguns and assault rifles from people barred by law from owning firearms, officials said Wednesday. The plan received the green light Wednesday, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation providing $24 million to clear the backlog of weapons known to be in the hands of about 20,000 people who acquired them legally. They were later disqualified because of criminal convictions, restraining orders or serious mental illness.

SACRAMENTO - The state Assembly approved $24 million Thursday to speed up the confiscation of guns from Californians who are not allowed to own them because of criminal convictions or serious mental illness. A day earlier, lawmakers rejected a plan to allow school districts to train teachers and administrators to use guns to protect campuses. Legislators said the money they allocated would pay for 36 additional agents to capture 39,000 guns from people who bought them legally but were later disqualified because of a subsequent conviction or court order.

In his statement to his congregation about his son's death, Pastor Rick Warren talked about how “only those closest knew that he struggled from birth with mental illness, dark  holes of depression, even suicidal thoughts.” Matthew Warren, 27, died Saturday after battling depression for much of his life, the leader of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest said in his statement. “Today after a fun evening together with Kay and me, in a momentary wave of despair at his home, he took his own life,” Warren said of his son. He described Matthew Warren as a “kind, gentle and compassionate man” with a “brilliant intellect” who was sensitive to the needs of others.

Nicholas C. Petris, who was a leading liberal voice for nearly four decades as a California state senator and assemblyman representing his hometown of Oakland and other East Bay cities, has died. He was 90. Petris, who retired in 1996 because of term limits, died Wednesday at the Oakland retirement facility where he had lived in recent years, his former chief of staff, Felice Zensius, said. The cause was old age, she said. A Greek American known for his eloquence from the floor of the state Senate, Petris championed a host of liberal causes during his career, offering legislation on behalf of the poor, the sick and the elderly.

SACRAMENTO - California prison officials have opened a new psychiatric center for inmates, contending that the $24-million treatment facility is proof the state is ready to shed federal oversight of mental health care for prisoners. The new building, at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, will provide outpatient treatment for mentally ill inmates who do not require 24-hour care. "It's time for the federal courts to recognize the progress the state has made and end costly and unnecessary federal oversight," Jeffrey Beard, secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in prepared remarks.

Re "Prison's revolving door," Editorial, Feb. 5 Crime and arrests in Los Angeles County continue to decline. On the countywide Criminal Justice Coordination Committee's website, the first annual report on public safety realignment shows recidivism rates lower than expected for people transferred from state prison to county supervision. Yet the same report says the population of L.A. County jails has risen by 22%. Why? In a 2007 study, USC psychiatry professor H. Richard Lamb found that 95% of the severely mentally ill men in the county's Twin Towers jail had been there before.

SACRAMENTO - California authorities are empowered to seize weapons owned by convicted felons and people with mental illness, but staff shortages and funding cuts have left a backlog of more than 19,700 people to disarm, a law enforcement official said Tuesday. Those gun owners have roughly 39,000 firearms, said Stephen Lindley, chief of the Bureau of Firearms for the state Department of Justice, testifying at a joint legislative hearing. His office lacks enough staff to confiscate all the weapons, which are recorded in the state's Armed Prohibited Persons database, he said.