Bump and Update: We just received an email advising that the Senate version of the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, H.R. 2387, which is the Dewine bill (S. 1194), passed the Senate by unanimous consent last night. Here's the text of the bill as reported in the Senate.

Here's a quote from the hearing testimony of the President of the Association of State Correctional Administrators in in support of the bill:

On behalf of all directors of state departments of correction and hundreds of thousands of correctional employees across the country, representing prisons, jails, juvenile facilities, and community corrections operations, I want to tell you this: Senator DeWine’s introduction of S. 1194, together with the bipartisan support Senator Leahy and various members of the Committee have provided, has been the single most important and positive legislative development for corrections and mental health workers to occur in Congress in recent memory.

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Original post: 10/27, 10 pm

Last week we wrote about a new study showing there are hundreds of thousands of mentally ill inmates in the U.S. The report says that one in five of the 2.1 million people in America's jails and prisons are seriously mentally ill.

The study, by Human Rights Watch, concludes that jails and prisons have become the nation's default mental health system, as more state hospitals have closed and as the country's prison system has quadrupled over the past 30 years. There are now fewer than 80,000 people in mental hospitals, and the number is continuing to fall.

Thankfully, the media is picking up on the study. The Atlanta Journal Constitution has this editorial. Findlaw columnist Joanne Mariner writes this column today, pointing out the importance of our support for the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, H.R. 2387, pending in Congress.

[the bill] would provide federal grants to divert mentally ill offenders into treatment programs rather than prison or jail. It also allocates funding to improve the quality of prison and jail mental health services, and to establish discharge programs for mentally ill prisoners who are released.

It is a national shame that our prisons and jails serve as mental institutions. It reflects a lack of planning, a failure of public commitment, and a single-minded focus on punishment. The pending legislation represents a saner and more compassionate approach.

You can read the text of the bill here. Sen. Patrick Leahy's statements are here and here.