From the Los Angeles Times
COLUMN ONE
Shutting door to treatment
When those descending into mental illness commit a crime, their chances of getting needed help can dissolve when law enforcement arrives. By Lee Romney and Scott Gold Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
December 7, 2007
ORLAND, CALIF. Torrie Gonzales stood at the stove, laughing with her boyfriend as she fried him some eggs on his 23rd birthday. Then she felt him press a flimsy blade against her neck.
Struggling on the floor, she pried a paring knife from Reny Cabral's hand, leaving him curled up in a ball, sobbing and seemingly horrified.
"He said, 'I don't know what I'm doing. I'm so sorry,' " recalled Gonzales, now 25.
Twice more he attacked her, choking her until she passed out, then performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to revive her. Finally, he raised his arms with a look of panic and walked into the orchard adjacent to his parents' modest rural home.
A neighbor, hearing Gonzales' screams, dialed 911.
In the days leading up to the Jan. 6 attack, Cabral had been exhibiting symptoms of an emerging psychotic illness. He was held, briefly, in a psychiatric facility. But once Glenn County sheriff's deputies responded to the 911 call, he lost any chance of being treated in the mental health system. He would now be dealt with as a criminal, with catastrophic consequences.
As the availability of acute inpatient services has diminished, rising numbers of the mentally ill are ending up behind bars. About 350,000 of the country's 2.1 million inmates have been diagnosed with severe mental illness, said Dr. H. Richard Lamb, director of research for the Institute of Mental Health, Law, and Public Policy at USC's Keck School of Medicine.
Some mentally ill people find themselves diagnosed and treated for the first time after being incarcerated. But jails and prisons -- never designed for therapeutic care -- often trigger deeper crises, Lamb said.
What happened to Cabral provides a stark illustration of just how wrong things can go. Today, Cabral is not only facing criminal charges and struggling with mental illness; he is also paralyzed from the mid-chest down, unable to walk, to dial a phone or hold a pen.
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