Mandate 24/7 mental health professional services in county jails

 

This bill would make it mandatory for at least one mental health professional to be present at every county jail for 24

hours a day and 7 days a week. The purpose of this is to provide better mental health services for incarcerated people.

These are services that they need and that could help improve their lives and decrease the right of recidivism in

Minnesota.

 

This bill is justified because too many people in jails have no idea what to do when they are released, or have PTSD or

trauma from what they have seen. Many relapse back into bad activity, damaging themselves and the people around them.

There are ways to make sure this does not happen and that includes providing professional mental health care in every

county jail in Minnesota. According to the office of the legislative auditor for the state of Minnesota, since 2000,

there have been more than 50 suicides and 770 suicide attempts in Minnesota jails--most likely preventable! With more

mental health care and services in jails, those rates would go down immensely. Furthermore, a new study by Oxford has

found that people in prisons have higher rates of mental illnesses. Jails are supposed to be for people to change their

ways and start having a better life. Mental health support from professionals is something that will help with that

tremendously.

 

"Jail" shall be defined as a place for the confinement of people accused or convicted of a crime.

"Incarceration" shall be defined as the state of being confined in prison; imprisonment.

"Recidivism" shall be defined as a person's relapse into criminal behavior, often after the person receives sanctions or

undergoes intervention for a previous crime.

 

This bill will be funded by increasing the Cannabis sales tax by 5%

 

This bill will be enforced every 6 months by the department of corrections, inspection and enforcement unit.

If a county jail fails to provide incarcerated people access to mental health professionals 24/7 or if it does not use

the money to fund this service and instead uses it for something other than what this bill is doing, the jail will be

given a warning to provide that service and if they still have not done it in another 6 months, the jail will be fined

an amount equal to 2/3 of the amount they were given to provide the mental health services, however that money cannot

come from the money they were given by this bill.

 

When this bill passes, the effective date will be January 1st 2027 to allow time for all county jails in Minnesota to

implement it.