Faith Works 4-21-07
Jeff Gill

Where Do We Belong When We Don’t

Harper’s Magazine has a feature they’ve run for years called “Harper’s Index,” a series of statistics that usually tell some kind of a story, or series of stories.

In April, they led with these factoids, strung together for us to consider from either direction: “Percentage of American adults held either in prisons or mental institutions in 1953 and today, respectively: 0.68, 0.68.” Then, “Percentage of these adults in 1953 who were in mental institutions: 75,” followed by “Percentage today who are in prison: 97.”

So to punch up this point, let me rephrase. If you took the total of US citizens who were either in a mental institution or prison, for both 1953 and 2006, the same fraction of the overall population is under state supervision in each year. It hasn’t gone up hardly at all.

But that total number, which hasn’t changed, has swung from being 75% in places like Central State Mental Hospital, to being 97% in places like Lucasville.

The implication of these numbers is that we appear to be dealing with mental illness as a society by jailing rather than treating the disease. Central State is no longer open on Columbus’ west side, and that may be a good thing. Large residential mental health facilities, formerly called “asylums,” got a very bad reputation, for very specific reasons, and the political tide turned against funding those places.

When they were closed, the argument was that the money saved would go to community mental health clinics and group homes and supportive services in people’s own communities. Those who work in the mental health field assure me that this money never made it out of the Statehouse, but was routed elsewhere (see entry “lottery, proceeds for education”), while the mentally ill were routed out onto the street.

We still have under 1 percent of our adults under state care, but the shift from 75% asylum to 97% prison convinces me that either a) in 1953 there were mostly criminals in mental institutions, or b) we’ve got a significant mental health population in the Department of Corrections. The word from our Ohio prison system leans to b).

Which brings us to the tragic intersection of the Blacksburg shootings and our own ongoing homelessness problem. Violence and mental illness is not an automatic association in any set of statistics, but for the public mind, they are stuck together.

Schizophrenics, for instance, are likely to commit a violent crime at a rate of 15 out of a 100. The general population is about .5 in a hundred. Do you focus on the data so that it says “schizophrenics are 30 times more likely to commit violent crimes,” or “85% of schizophrenics never commit violent crimes.” Both are true, but not equally accurate depending on circumstances.

Churches struggle with the mentally ill in worship and congregational life in general. People who don’t follow standard patterns of behavior or speak inappropriately and bizarrely create major disruptions in group settings, and it gets terribly easy to justify easing such folk back out onto the sidewalk, arguing “for the greater good” and “aren’t they a safety risk for the children?”

Are they? Do we look into these questions in the larger context of safety and security for all youth activities, as they apply to all adults? And in fairness, when a troubled individual treats any restrictions as unfair singling out, we tend to go to an “all or nothing” approach to guidelines that really helps no one.

The folks at Open Arms Emergency Homeless Shelter (www.lastcalloutreach.org), on East Main in Newark, just tallied up their situation, after 70 days of operation over 94 days (they had to move a few times, you’ve heard). They’ve helped feed and shelter 36 different homeless persons through those 70 days, some staying one night, others as much as 30, with the average in between.

Half of their guests have reported mental health or addiction issues leading to their situation, and half have spent time locked up – on that, go back to the first paragraph and read it again.

Where do we want people to go who don’t fit in? Where are churches called to be at work for those who don’t fit in, and how does that outreach fit into the larger mission of the church? Call Mental Health America of Licking County at 522-1341 (or check out www.mhalc.org), and ask them to come speak to your church’s leadership about how mental health can be part of your ministry.

It probably already is, and just isn’t spoken out loud. Bring the subject up, and see where God leads you.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your ministry efforts with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.