By
Larry Bolinger (Author and Political Activist)
24 January 2025
Proposed mental health policy:
In this week’s newspaper, the Nebraska Attorney General and Senator Storer have done a bit of a study on Mental Health and how we are addressing it. We do not have the mental health facilities to address issues of mental health or drug addiction. Where there is a problem, people have to be transported to Grand Island. Sometimes people are transferred all that way to find out there is no room. The proposed bill is to add more beds in our jails. The big problem we face today is that we utilize our jails to address people with mental health as well as drug addiction. That has created an overpopulation in our jails and it has increased homelessness. The problems are not being addressed. Where this problem started was in 2015. In 2015 the detox center was shut down in Scottsbluff. Then in 2018, the County Commissioners along with consistent campaigns from the Governor to defund clinics, chose to defund the clinics. So more than a dozen clinics were shut down. That left much of Nebraska with no programs to address mental health or drug addiction.
I remember this being in 2018 because I was running for Congress in 2018 and I went to a public meeting in Gering Nebraska at the Civic Center where County Commissioners from the region were there to address the concerns of funding clinics. The people pleaded to keep them open. The County Commissioners took the funds away anyway. During that campaign year, the Governor was consistent in defunding clinics and taking away money for Planned Parenthood. That was never done. The end result was to take funds from other clinics. In 2022, I was running for Attorney General and was pushing for more programs for Mental Health and Drug Addiction. When I was campaigning in Lincoln, one of the biggest issues that was talked about was that our government is using jails and correctional facilities to address mental health and drug addiction. There was also a growing concern for the vast growing homelessness. When someone with mental health gets put into the system, they lose their disability assistance. When they are released they have to reapply to get reinstated. Many don’t know this. They are usually just kicked out the door and left to fend for themselves. So, they become homeless. Some are left with turning to drug use and breaking the law. This adds to the catch-and-release and an increasing recidivism rate. Core problems are not being addressed. Mental Health issues are not being addressed. Drug addictions are not being addressed.
In my area of Alliance, Nebraska, if you have someone who is schizophrenic and is having an episode, there isn’t any emergency process. You can call the psychiatrist for an emergency, and she will schedule a meeting in a week or two. You can call the police, but the only thing they can do is refer you to the hospital and the person can get looked at and is usually released. The only time Law Enforcement can do anything is when that person breaks the law. However, they can do a wellness check. Which can be helpful. When someone is having a psychotic episode, there is not really much that can be done because the tools necessary to address mental health were taken away. So people who need help have to be transported to the closest facility which is more than 300 miles away. That facility does not guarantee a bed, so the trip could be a wasted trip. This problem has been addressed every year for the past 6 years in several campaigns. The solution is to add more beds in jail? Really? Why isn’t the solution to add a wing to a hospital that addresses mental health and one for drug addiction and hire qualified people to run those wings? Jails do not deal with mental health issues, it is just a quick fix to get someone out of the way.
For more than a decade, there has been a focus on increasing correctional facilities. In the 2022 campaign, two new correctional facilities were being budgeted that were costing roughly 500 million dollars. Research at that time showed that the Nebraska correctional system had the highest overpopulation in the entire nation. Most states are adding mental health programs, drug addiction programs, and diversion programs and are seeing a decrease in recidivism rates. Nebraska took away those programs and added more jails and is one of the few states that has shown an increase in recidivism rates. We ignored the problems and the problems have gotten significantly worse. It is good that the government knows there is a growing problem. It is unfortunate that they are addressing it poorly.