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2010 Priority Initiatives
- Maintain corrections anti-segregation language in state budget and/or statute (adults and children with mental illness/emotional disorder).
- Educate the public and policy-makers on mental health issues and justice systems.
- Improve administration and streamlining of corrections mental health program.
- Secure increased state funding for Corrections Ombudsman, and expand ombudsman services in Michigan to include state and local juvenile justice issues.
- Establish diversion principles for adults and children at risk of incarceration or detention due to psychiatric disorders.
- Identify emerging trends and models for mental health court operations. Monitor progress of, and interact with State Court Administrative Office regarding, Michigan’s pilot mental health courts.
- Maintain language in state budget and/or statute for suspension (rather than termination) of Medicaid for those incarcerated or detained.
- Obtain funding for and/or renew legislative requirement for study of prevalence, need and treatment levels in local jails. {NOTE: Similar study of state prison system, stimulated by PIC and conducted by the University of Michigan was released April 2010.}
- Obtain legislative and/or executive acceptance of juvenile justice study on emotional disorder prevalence, needs and treatment.
- Ban incarceration in state prison of youth with serious emotional disorders as defined in the Michigan Mental Health Code.
- Change state law to undo negative effects of Attorney General’s 2009 ruling on responsibility for reimbursement of mental health service in local jails.
PIC will additionally support the work of:
The Michigan Partners for Parity coalition, toward assuring equality of mental health insurance coverage for all privately insured state residents. (2008 federal law leaves 2 million Michigan privately insured without equal protection.)
The Michigan Prisoner Reentry Initiative, toward assisting released inmates to succeed in the community and avoid returning to incarceration.
The Departments of Corrections and Community Health and the Legislature in following up on the 2010 results of the University of Michigan study on mental illness prevalence, treatment needs and treatment levels in state prisons.
The Departments of Corrections and Community Health and the Legislature in following up on a 2010 study released by the Mental Health Association in Michigan on state correctional mental health policies and operating procedures.
The Michigan Child Welfare Improvement Task Force, toward implementing a full array of services and mechanisms to assist youth in Michigan.
The Michigan Campaign for Justice initiative to provide more indigent defendants with accessible legal counsel.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness-Michigan in promoting Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) for law enforcement officials.
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