A recent article in the Independent (Santa Barbara County Has One of the State’s Highest Arrest Rates – The Santa Barbara Independent) highlighted Santa Barbara County’s high rate of arrests and low rate of mental health treatment by the Department of Behavioral Wellness.
“According to a study conducted by researchers at the National Library of Medicine, individuals with any psychiatric disorder were associated with a four to five times higher risk of committing crimes.” No doubt, the rate is higher for those with an untreated psychiatric disorder.
This known relationship between untreated mental disorders and higher rates of arrest is the reason the Department of Health Care Services highlighted S.B. County’s high rate of arrests in its report to the Department of Behavioral Wellness.
The Sheriff’s Office reports that persons with behavioral health disorders compose a significant proportion of our jail population, with 44 percent of jail residents in South County, and 40 percent in the North County Jail on psychotropic medications. The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation definition of psychotropic medications is “any medication prescribed for the treatment of symptoms of psychoses and other mental and emotional disorders.”
It seems clear that we will only significantly reduce the size of our jail population once we focus on access to effective treatment in the community. We have the opportunity to do this with recent statewide mandates of the Behavioral Health Services Act (BHSA) and CalAim PATH (Providing Access and Transforming Health).
To sustainably reduce the size of our jail population, not only do we need to reduce lengths of stays in the jails, but we need to improve treatment on the outside to prevent arrests in the first place and also with the goal of reducing the astonishin high rate of recidivism of those with serious mental illness — 76 percent, with 47 percent having been arrested 10 or more times,according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Jails are not designed for treatment. Those with mental illness suffer trauma and deteriorate further while incarcerated. Most will be released back to the community, many more ill than when they were arrested, to repeat the cycle of crisis and re-arrest. They deserve better access to treatment on the outside.
