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Police, state assailed by grand jury over treatment of mentally ill
By Ihosvani Rodriguez
Miami Bureau
Posted January 12 2005
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A Miami-Dade County grand jury on Tuesday issued a sweeping report that accuses state authorities of recycling the mentally ill through the criminal justice system, urges police departments to create teams trained to defuse the often-fatal police encounters with the mentally ill and endorses the use of Tasers. The report comes at a time when police in South Florida have been under fire for their alleged mistreatment of the mentally ill. Titled Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System: A Recipe For Disaster/A Prescription for Improvement, it portrays local jails as warehouses for the mentally ill where long-term resources and solutions are scarce.
They also said that when police use them appropriately, Tasers are a viable option in trying to detain a mentally ill individual. "When the choice is between five seconds of neurological incapacitation or death, we chose the former," the grand jury wrote. In conducting their report, the 21 members of the citizen panel visited the local jail, interviewed police officials and studied numerous local cases to determine what reforms are overdue. In the first part of the 46-page report, the jury tackled the way Florida has shifted its burden for caring for the mentally ill onto local communities by shutting down state mental hospitals and cutting back on resources. The jury's members expressed dismay that hundreds of mentally ill individuals are housed at the Miami-Dade County Jail, calling the jail a new type of mental institution. "In essence, (Florida's) Department of Corrections is trying to run a psychiatric hospital in a facility that was designed to house persons who have engaged in criminal behavior," the report said. "The costs for running this `hospital inside a jail' are staggering." The jury notes that there are 800 to 1,200 mentally ill inmates at any given time on the jail's three psychiatric floors. Taxpayers in Miami-Dade and Broward counties pay $125 per day to house just one mentally ill inmate at the local jails, the jury said. Comparably, Broward spends $78 per day for a general population inmate, while Miami-Dade spends $18. Constructing a local detention facility for mentally ill inmates and providing more doctors and social workers at the jail are among the six recommendations the jury provided. More pointedly, the jury called for more state funds to create adequate long-term care and more services. Many of the panel's proposed solutions call for statewide reforms, but they also looked at how local police departments treat the mentally ill. In the report, the jury applauded the recent efforts by Miami-Dade Police Director Robert Parker to train his officers to better deal with mentally ill individuals. However, the report lamented that the largest law enforcement department in Miami-Dade has not created a special team to respond to violent situations involving the mentally ill. Specifically, the jury cited a recent case in which Miami-Dade officers shot and killed a mentally ill man during a violent confrontation in south Miami-Dade as a prime example of how "more options and better training" could have saved his life. Police spokesman Bobby Williams declined to comment, saying the department has not had time to read the jury's report. However, Parker has often rejected the idea of a response team by saying it would not suit a department the size of his. Parker's department also has been under scrutiny for using stun guns on children, the jury noted, but the report only focuses on the use of Tasers on the mentally ill. The panel highlighted local cases in which people were killed when a Taser could have been used to defuse the situation. "We recognize that there is a possibility of abuse and that Tasers, as well as pepper spray, batons and firearms can be used inappropriately by some police officers," the jury wrote. "We don't see that as a justification to take these tools away from the officers." Ihosvani Rodriguez can be reached at ijrodriguez@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5005. 
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