Post by Logan on Feb 1, 2016 16:35:35 GMT -6
LePage renews push to house forensic patients at Maine State Prison
AUGUSTA – The LePage administration is reviving a controversial proposal to house some violent or difficult-to-manage mental health patients within a special unit at Maine State Prison as a way to address safety and staffing concerns at Augusta’s Riverview Psychiatric Center.
The proposal comes at a time when the Maine Department of Health and Human Services is under pressure from state lawmakers and federal regulators to find another option for so-called “forensic” patients sent to Riverview by the courts. But mental health advocates, civil liberties groups and some lawmakers quickly denounced the proposal, foreshadowing a lively fight in the Legislature.
“We don’t currently criminalize mental illness and that is exactly what this does,” said Sen. Anne Haskell, a Portland Democrat who serves on the committee slated to review the bill. “These are people who have not been found guilty of anything and their route should be one of care, not of punishment.”
In a revival of a proposal first debated in 2013, DHHS is seeking legislative approval to be able to send certain individuals to the Intensive Mental Health Unit already operating at the Maine State Prison in Warren. Such a move would only be an option for people judged by the courts as either “incompetent to stand trial” or “not criminally responsible” and who are violent or pose a danger to others at Riverview, a 92-bed psychiatric hospital.
Read more: www.pressherald.com/2016/02/01/lepage-renews-push-to-house-forensic-patients-at-maine-state-prison/
AUGUSTA – The LePage administration is reviving a controversial proposal to house some violent or difficult-to-manage mental health patients within a special unit at Maine State Prison as a way to address safety and staffing concerns at Augusta’s Riverview Psychiatric Center.
The proposal comes at a time when the Maine Department of Health and Human Services is under pressure from state lawmakers and federal regulators to find another option for so-called “forensic” patients sent to Riverview by the courts. But mental health advocates, civil liberties groups and some lawmakers quickly denounced the proposal, foreshadowing a lively fight in the Legislature.
“We don’t currently criminalize mental illness and that is exactly what this does,” said Sen. Anne Haskell, a Portland Democrat who serves on the committee slated to review the bill. “These are people who have not been found guilty of anything and their route should be one of care, not of punishment.”
In a revival of a proposal first debated in 2013, DHHS is seeking legislative approval to be able to send certain individuals to the Intensive Mental Health Unit already operating at the Maine State Prison in Warren. Such a move would only be an option for people judged by the courts as either “incompetent to stand trial” or “not criminally responsible” and who are violent or pose a danger to others at Riverview, a 92-bed psychiatric hospital.
Read more: www.pressherald.com/2016/02/01/lepage-renews-push-to-house-forensic-patients-at-maine-state-prison/