John Howard website aims to address jail, addiction, mental illness
Desperate for money so he could feed his drug addiction, Elliot Hudson robbed a convenience store and a gas station. He needed help, he said in an interview; instead, he got jail.
“I think a lot of people think you are going to be able to access services if you are incarcerated ... it sucks that that person went to jail but at least they are getting the help they need,” he said. “That’s just not true... I was flabbergasted.”
This is one of the misconceptions about how mental health problems and addictions are dealt with in the criminal justice system that Hudson is hoping a new website from the John Howard Society of Ontario will correct.
The website, called “Broken Record” follows a 2015 report from the organization detailing how people with mental illnesses are criminalized in Ontario and the reforms needed from policing to courts to jails.
The report prompted “an unprecedented outpouring of stories from families right across the province” of painful, tragic experiences with the justice system, said Jacqueline Tasca, the director of partnerships and strategic initiatives at the John Howard Society of Ontario.
Snippets of some of those stories are interspersed with statistics on the website to explain how a person with a mental illness could become trapped in the criminal justice system, and how that can be exacerbated by racism, poverty and homelessness.
“You open your eyes and it hurts. The room comes into focus just as the first wave of panic hits. Sink, toilet, mattress. You don’t remember how you got here. You’ve been here before,” says one screen. It is sandwiched between research: “Most people people with mental illnesses are charged with public nuisance offences related to their symptoms. Very few charges are due to real criminal activity,” and, “More than 40 per cent of Ontario prisoners show symptoms of a severe mental health problem.”
The site also highlights proposed reforms. Among them is more supportive housing and access to health care, which Tasca said is key to preventing crises from occurring in the first place.