"It's gotten to the point where you have to threaten a public official to get treatment," sighs Rosalind Andrews, chief of U.S. Probation for East Tennessee. Unlike state prisoners, says Andrews, federal prisoners enjoy generous medical benefits paid for by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. Then when it's time for release, they are assigned to a mental health specialist who can ease them back into society armed with a support system that can include job training and counseling.
While working as a probation officer in Washington D.C., Andrews says beat officers who encountered the same mentally ill offenders "would literally send them to the White House because they knew this was the only way to get them treatment."
"It's such a crazy way to look at things," continues Andrews, adding, "I'm shaking my fist when I say this. We're in a country that tends to deal with things on the back end instead of the front end."
Andrews believes inadequate access to mental health care up front is pushing people into the federal system. It's an opinion backed up by the experience of Kathryn Callaway, one of the federal probation officers Andrews oversees.
Callaway, a mental health specialist, watched as one of her released prisoners bounced in and out of the TennCare Partners program.
"TennCare just really dropped the ball in not stabilizing him," says Callaway, detailing how a mentally ill man on federal probation needed at least 10 days of hospital care to deal with his diabetes and schizophrenia, but TennCare would not pay for an extended hospital stay.
"The phrase they use is 'treat and street,'" quips Callaway. "They just kept treating and streeting him."
In order to get the man appropriate care, Callaway says she convinced him to turn himself in after committing a minor probation violation.
"I just basically laid it out to the offender," says Callaway. "I said, 'I'm afraid you're going to die in a ditch.'"
Once back in the federal system, the man remained in a hospital for nine months. —David Madison
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