[Congressional Record Volume 161, Number 55 (Thursday, April 16, 2015)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2251-S2252]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. FRANKEN (for himself, Mr. Cornyn, Mr. Leahy, Ms. Ayotte, 
        Mr. Durbin, Mr. Blunt, Mr. Whitehouse, Mr. Portman, Ms. 
        Klobuchar, Mr. Coons, Mr. Blumenthal, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Brown, 
        Ms. Warren, and Mr. Booker):
  S. 993. A bill to increase public safety by facilitating 
collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice, veterans 
treatment services, mental health treatment, and substance abuse 
systems; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. FRANKEN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the Comprehensive 
Justice and Mental Health Act, a bill I am introducing today with a 
number of my Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle and with 
Representative Doug Collins, who is introducing this legislation in the 
House. This bipartisan, bicameral bill will improve outcomes for people 
with mental illness when they interact with the criminal justice 
system. The Judiciary Committee unanimously approved this bill by voice 
vote in the last Congress, and I look forward to working with my 
colleagues on the committee to move this legislation forward to 
consideration by the full Senate.
  The Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act is meant to address a 
very serious problem: The United States has 5 percent of the world's 
population but has 25 percent of the world's prison population--in 
large part because we have effectively criminalized mental illness. 
People with mental health conditions disproportionately are arrested 
and incarcerated, but instead of providing people with adequate access 
to mental health treatment, we let them fall through the cracks and 
languish in prison. As my home county--Hennepin County--Sheriff Rich 
Stanek put it, ``Local jails are the largest mental health facilities 
in the state of Minnesota,'' and this holds true across our Nation.
  Let's be clear. Using our criminal justice system as a substitute for 
a fully functioning mental health system doesn't make sense. It doesn't 
make sense for law enforcement officers who often put their lives at 
risk when they are called upon to intervene in a mental health crisis. 
It doesn't make sense for courts which are inundated with cases 
involving people with mental illness. It doesn't make sense for people 
who have mental health conditions who often would benefit from 
treatment and intensive supervision than from traditional 
incarceration. It certainly doesn't make sense for taxpayers who foot 
the bill for high incarceration costs and overcrowded correction 
facilities and who must pay again when these untreated mentally ill 
prisoners are released back into society often in much worse shape than 
when they were locked up.
  We can improve access to mental health services for people who come 
into contact with the criminal justice system, and we can give law 
enforcement officers the tools they need to identify and respond to 
mental health issues in the communities and the situations they 
confront.
  In 2004, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the 
Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act--or MIOTCRA--
which supports innovative programs that bring together mental health 
and criminal justice agencies to address the unique needs of people 
with mental health conditions. Former Ohio Republican Senator Mike 
DeWine, who now serves as that State's Attorney General, was the 
original sponsor of MIOTCRA.
  The Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act reauthorizes and 
improves MIOTCRA. Let me talk a little bit about how the programs 
supported by this legislation protect law enforcement officers and save 
lives. I will give one example.
  In 2013, I visited the police station in Columbia Heights, MN, a 
suburb of the Twin Cities. I talked with some of the officers who had 
been given crisis

[[Page S2252]]

intervention training for law enforcement officers to recognize when 
they are confronted or are entering a situation that involves someone 
who has a mental illness. The sheriff wasn't there that day, but the 
county attorney who was there on behalf of the sheriff said that the 
day after the sheriff had his training, he did not kill a guy he would 
otherwise have killed because he recognized what was going on. That was 
pretty dramatic.
  So I turned to the other officers there who had also had this crisis 
intervention training and said to a policewoman: Can you give me a more 
garden-variety example?
  She said: OK. About 3 months ago, I was on the street and I heard a 
woman screaming. I thought it was some domestic violence thing or 
something. I went to see what was going on, and she went over to a 
railing that if she had let go, she would have dropped to a playground 
below. She might not have killed herself, but she would have gotten 
very badly hurt. From my training, I realized I was in a situation with 
someone who was mentally ill, and I used my training to talk her back 
up. I spoke to the woman. She said she had been sexually abused as a 
child; that the perpetrator had left town and had left her life, but 
recently that man had come back.
  She said: I think I know where I can get help for you. And she got 
her access to some treatment.
  She said: A couple months later, I was working a street fair when 
this same woman came up to me, very calm, and said: You saved my life.
  I said: OK. This is your garden-variety story?
  She said: Yes, I use this training all the time. I will holster my 
gun maybe once in my career, but I use this all the time.
  Now, the grants currently available that would be reauthorized 
through the Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act--which fund 
programs such as local crisis intervention training--are the only ones 
offered by the Justice Department that address mental health issues in 
the criminal justice system. So passing this legislation is critically 
important, and the bill would improve and expand upon the law.
  Here are some of the important things the bill does: It continues 
support for mental health courts and crisis intervention teams, both of 
which save lives and money. It includes new grant accountability 
measures and emphasizes the use of evidence-based practices that have 
been proven effective through empirical evidence. Our Presiding Officer 
is a physician, therefore a scientist, and therefore relies on 
empirical evidence. It authorizes investments in veterans treatment 
courts, which serve arrested veterans who have been arrested because 
they suffer from PTSD, substance addiction, which may be used to 
medicate their mental health or behavioral and other mental health 
conditions, other sometimes invisible wounds. It supports the 
development of programs, such as crisis intervention training, to train 
local, State, and Federal law enforcement officers how to recognize and 
respond appropriately to mental health crises. One of the new things 
the bill does is to support State and local efforts to identify people 
with mental health conditions at each point in the criminal justice 
system in order to appropriately direct them to mental health services.
  Our bill also increases the focus on corrections-based programs.
  I went to a prison in St. Cloud, MN, where they do intake in our 
State system. They said this crisis intervention training is incredibly 
important to them. They said: Do you watch TV on the weekends where 
they show prisoners, show the prison system, where you put on all the 
gear because some prisoner has gotten out of control and you have to go 
into the cell and tackle them? That could be avoided very often by 
understanding what is going on here. There is a lot of wear and tear 
when they have to go in like that. It is better to recognize what is 
going on and know how to deal with it.
  The bill also increases the focus on things such as transitional 
services that reduce recidivism rates and screening practices that 
identify inmates with mental health conditions.
  Finally, the bill gives local officials greater control over program 
participation eligibility. This again is for a program that already 
exists.
  The current system is broken. It doesn't serve the interests of 
people with mental illness, and it doesn't protect the safety of law 
enforcement personnel. As one Minnesota judge wrote:

       While [inmates with mental illness] are sitting in jail, 
     they often recede further into the depths of their illness. 
     They present a danger to themselves; they present a danger to 
     fellow inmates; and they present a danger to the . . . men 
     and women who run the jails.

  We have an obligation to ensure that people with mental illness 
receive the treatment and supervision they need and that the officers 
who put their lives on the line when they are called on to intervene in 
mental health crises are trained to respond in a way that protects 
their safety and that of their fellow officers and of the person with 
mental illness. This bill helps us better meet that obligation.
  I am very pleased to introduce this bill with a bipartisan group of 
lawmakers who are committed to improving the ways in which people with 
mental health conditions interact with the criminal justice system--in 
particular, my fellow lead sponsor, Senator John Cornyn, and 
Representative Doug Collins, who is leading this effort in the House.
  This legislation has always enjoyed bipartisan support. In 2004, it 
was introduced by Michael DeWine, Republican from Ohio, in the Senate. 
In the last Congress, the predecessor of this bill had 39 Senate 
cosponsors, including 25 Democrats and 14 Republicans. The House 
companion bill had 55 cosponsors, including 24 Democrats and 31 
Republicans.
  As you can see, this has always been a bipartisan effort, and I am 
pleased to continue that tradition in this Congress. I would like to 
thank Senators Cornyn, Ayotte, Blunt, and Portman, as well as Senators 
Leahy, Durbin, Whitehouse, Klobuchar, Coons, Blumenthal, Boxer, Brown, 
Warren, and Booker, for serving as original cosponsors of the 
Comprehensive Justice and Mental Health Act. I look forward to adding 
more cosponsors in the days to come.
  I would also like to recognize the many law enforcement, civil rights 
veterans, and mental health advocacy organizations--most notably the 
Council of State Governments--for standing in strong support of this 
legislation or its predecessor bill and advocating tirelessly for its 
enactment. More than 250 organizations endorsed this legislation in the 
previous Congress, including the American Legion, the Major Cities 
Chiefs Association, the Major County Sheriffs' Association, the 
National Sheriffs' Association, the National Alliance on Mental 
Illness, the National Association of Counties, and the Wounded Warrior 
Project, just to name a few.
  I look forward to working together with advocates and with my 
colleagues to get this bill enacted into law so that we can ease the 
burden of mental health problems on our criminal justice system and 
help a lot of people.
                                 ______