On the recordFebruary 25, 2016
I thank Dr. McDermott. He has been, really, a champion of mental health issues in his career and on this bill as well. I want to point out, the bill he is referring to is our Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, H.R. 2646. It is bipartisan. It has 183 cosponsors today--50 Democrats, the rest Republicans--because we all recognize that when you are dealing with someone with mental illness, in the 40 years that I have practiced as a psychologist, I have never once asked any of my patients what party they are. We know that mental illness affects people regardless of gender or race or age, certainly not by party. We also know, however, that getting care is tougher. Studies have said that if you are Black, your chances of getting treatment for your mental illness are even tougher. In fact, in Los Angeles County, 9.6 percent of the population is Black, and yet they constitute 31 percent of the L.A. County jail prisoners, and they have a lower likelihood of getting psychiatric medication. Although most crimes committed by people with mental illness tend to be nonviolent, after they have repetitive incarcerations, they tend to serve four times longer sentences when they are mentally ill than someone who is not. So that is what we mean when we say we have filled our prisons and we have increased our costs with this. I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Hill), to also talk about the things we need to do and our problems with mental illness.
