Lujan Grisham Amendment Incorporated into CJS Appropriations Bill

Press Release

U.S. Rep Michelle Lujan Grisham (NM-01) introduced an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science Appropriations Bill which would add 2 million dollars to the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act programs, which includes a broad range of mental health services and crisis intervention training for state and local police departments. The Department of Justice recommended that the Albuquerque Police Department improve its response to individuals in behavioral or mental health crisis and require all officers to participate in crisis intervention training.

Rep. Lujan Grisham spoke on the House floor about the amendment. Below is a transcript of her remarks:
"Thank you Madam Chair. And thank you Chairman Wolf and Ranking Member Fattah for your leadership and tireless work on this bill.

"Madam Chair, my amendment would add 2 million dollars to the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act programs. This will partially restore these programs to pre-sequestration levels and provide desperately needed funding for increasing collaboration between our nation's criminal justice and mental health systems.

"My amendment is offset by the Department of Justice's general administration account. And while I recognize the importance of funding the DOJ, this amendment amounts to less than two tenths of one percent of DOJ's total administrative budget.

"But even though this 2 million dollar investment is modest, it will have a tremendous impact on assisting state and local law enforcement agencies all across the country to provide a broad range of mental health services, including mental health courts, mental health and substance abuse treatment, rehabilitation and community reentry services, and training for state and local law enforcement to help them identify and improve responses to people with mental illnesses.

"I want to particularly express my support for crisis intervention training for state and local police officers, which receives funding through the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act. Officer encounters with mentally ill individuals during crisis too often end in tragedy.

"Crisis intervention training can help prevent injuries to officers, alleviate harm to the person in crisis, promote the decriminalization of individuals with mental illness, and reduce the stigma associated with mental disorders.

"We can all agree that the mental health and criminal justice systems in this country are failing the American people. Focused more on prosecution than prevention and rehabilitation, jail is often used as a de facto holding area for the mentally ill.
"The Department of Justice estimates that 64% of local jail inmates and 56% of state inmates have symptoms of severe mental illness.

"Without treatment, rehabilitation, and community reentry services, these individuals are much more likely to spend their lives in and out of the prison system.
"In fact, 81% of mentally ill inmates in state prison and 79% of mentally ill inmates in local jails have had prior convictions.

"Considering that it takes more money to keep a person in jail for a year than send him or her to college, we cannot afford to do nothing.

"I believe my amendment is in the spirit of this bill's goal of increasing in prevention and rehabilitation in order to reduce recidivism and long-term incarceration costs.

"I urge my colleagues to support my amendment and ensure that our criminal justice and mental health systems have the funds that they need to serve this country's most vulnerable people.

"With that, I yield back the balance of my time."

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