When a Moss Point man was involved in an assault and taken to the city jail, staff there suspected he had a mental-health issue. So, instead of keeping him locked up there, officials called Singing River Health Systems Behavioral Health Services to get the man proper help.
Moss Point Police Chief Keith Davis said this is now a success story. It has been about four months, and the man is on medication and doing well, he said.
Handling calls that involve mental illness -- while not the most common received by law enforcement -- does present an issue for Jackson County officers.
"They don't belong in jail," Davis said. "We have an obligation to the victims of these crimes, but I do feel that they need proper help."
Gautier and Pascagoula police officials, and the Jackson County Sheriff's Office also take a person suspected of mental illness to Singing River Hospital instead of jail, unless he or she is severely violent.
David Burkhart, vice president of SRHS Behavioral Health Services, said its adult psychiatric unit contains 16 beds. Because it is built for short stays of a few days to a couple of weeks, there usually isn't a problem with the unit being full, he said.
Patients typically are brought in either by law enforcement or court order, though some check themselves in.
The most common cases at SRHS Behavioral unit are attempted suicides, he said.
If the unit is full, patients are sent to Gulf Oaks or Memorial Behavioral Health in Harrison County.
Law enforcement authorities in Harrison, Stone, Hancock and Pearl River counties use Gulfport's Gulf Coast Mental Health Center crisis-stabilization unit to get help for people with mental-health issues. Patients at that unit are treated during a two-to-three-week stay. Staffing cutbacks have limited the CSU's capacity to 25 patients to ensure safety of the patients and staff.
Harrison County Sheriff Melvin Brisolara said the issue in his county is not the number of calls related to mental illness, but the increased staffing needed to get a person to the proper facility.
Moss Point's Davis believes there is a need for more mental-health assistance in dealing with mentally ill calls in Jackson County, including education. He does not have numbers specific to mental illness, but said public safety officials need more help.
"Statistically, it is more common than law enforcement officers think," he said.
About one in four Americans, equaling 57.7 million people, experience a mental health issue, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
Between 3 and 7 percent of calls received nationwide by law enforcement agencies involve a mentally ill person, according to the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Copyright 2013 - The Sun Herald
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
