[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26065-26066]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




  THE MENTALLY ILL OFFENDER TREATMENT AND CRIME REDUCTION ACT OF 2003

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and 
Crime Reduction Act is a good bipartisan bill that would help State and 
local governments deal effectively with a serious law enforcement and 
mental health problem--the extent to which mentally ill individuals 
commit crimes and recidivate without ever receiving appropriate 
attention from the mental health, law enforcement, or corrections 
systems. I am pleased that the bill passed the Judiciary Committee 
unanimously last week, and the Senate unanimously last night.
  I have enjoyed working on this bill with Senator DeWine, who has 
shown

[[Page 26066]]

commitment and leadership on this issue. I am also pleased that 
Senators Cantwell, Domenici, Durbin, Grassley, and Hatch have joined 
Senator DeWine and I as cosponsors of this bill.
  The issues this bill addresses have received increasing attention of 
late. For example, Human Rights Watch released a report just last week 
discussing the fact ``that jails and prisons have become the Nation's 
default mental health system.'' The first recommendation in the report 
was for Congress to enact this bill.
  All too often, people with mental illness rotate repeatedly between 
the criminal justice system and the streets of our communities, 
committing a series of minor offenses. The ever scarcer time of our law 
enforcement officers is being occupied by these offenders who divert 
them from more urgent responsibilities. Meanwhile, offenders find 
themselves in prisons or jails, where little or no appropriate medical 
care is available for them. This bill gives State and local governments 
the tools to break this cycle, for the good of law enforcement, 
corrections officers, the public safety, and mentally ill offenders 
themselves.
  I held a Judiciary Committee hearing last June on the criminal 
justice system and mentally ill offenders. At that hearing, we heard 
from State mental health officials, law enforcement officers, 
corrections officials, and the representative of counties around our 
Nation. All of our witnesses agreed that people with untreated mental 
illness are more likely to commit crimes, and that our State mental 
health systems, prisons, and jails do not have the resources they need 
to treat the mentally ill, and prevent crime and recidivism. We know 
that more than 16 percent of adults incarcerated in U.S. jails and 
prisons have a mental illness, that about 20 percent of youth in the 
juvenile justice system have serious mental health problems, and that 
up to 40 percent of adults who suffer from a serious mental illness 
will come into contact with the American criminal justice system at 
some point in their lives. We know these things, but we have not done 
enough about them at the Federal level, and our State and local 
officials need our help.
  The bill does not mandate a ``one size fits all'' approach to 
addressing this issue. Rather, it allows grantees to use the funding 
authorized under the bill for mental health courts or other court-based 
programs, for training for criminal justice and mental health system 
personnel, and for better mental health treatment in our communities 
and within the corrections system. The funding is also generous enough 
to make a real difference, with $100 million authorized for each of the 
next two fiscal years. This is an area where government spending can 
not only do good but can also save money in the long run--a dollar 
spent today to get mentally ill offenders effective medical care can 
save many dollars in law enforcement costs in the long run.
  This bill has brought law enforcement officers and mental health 
professionals together, as we have seen at both of the hearings the 
committee has held on this issue.
  Now that we have passed this bill, I would hope the Senate could turn 
its attention to S. 486, the Paul Wellstone Mental Health Equitable 
Treatment Act. Senators Domenici and Kennedy introduced this bill in 
February and it has 66 cosponsors. It would provide for equal insurance 
coverage for mental health benefits, and would do a great deal to 
accomplish some of the same objectives we seek to achieve through this 
bill. I would hope that we could find an hour in the time we have 
remaining in this session to debate and pass this bipartisan and 
broadly supported bill.

                          ____________________