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The cost of jailing the mentally ill

A growing number of inmates entering the Montgomery County jail are requiring mental health services, pushing up the cost to taxpayers. Montgomery County Sheriff Phil Plummer said the percentage of inmates with mental health issues increased from 18% to 26% in the last year alone and he fears it will go even higher.

"As we are treating people in the jail with the huge cost of psychotropic drugs, the cost is going up every year," Plummer said.

According to the sheriff, the county spends $4 million on medical services at the jail every year and mental health is becoming a larger part of the budget each year. The situation stems from the shut-down of the state mental hospital in Dayton in 2008. Since then, the jail has become the service provider of last resort for many people with mental problems who have run afoul of the law.

"The problem is they are only in there four or five days. They're released, then reoffend and then they are back in our jail," Sheriff Plummer said.

In response, Plummer has undertaken a study of special costs associated with caring for that part of the jail population. He has also begun searching for funding resources to provide a "bridge" to help people leaving the jail stay on their medications and successfully return to outside life.

Family members of current and former inmates support the move, advocating for better services to help break the cycle of offending and returning to jail. Michelle Madurski, a Huber Heights mother of a 23 year-old-son who had been in the jail recently, said she has tried every available program to help her son.

"I need my son to be able to have some hope. And I don't think he does," Madurski said.

Michelle Maloy-Kidder, Executive Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said at a minimum additional treatment hours should be available in the jail from a psychiatrist. She expressed a willingness to work with the sheriff to pursue the reforms needed to improve programs for inmates.

"Everything we do, there is a better way. We have to be willing to work together to figure out what that better way is," Maloy-Kidder said.

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