(Feb. 29, 2016) A 24-hour mental health triage center may be opening in Chicago later this year with the goal of removing some of the burden from one of the country’s most overcrowded facilities, Cook County jail, where about a fifth of inmates suffer from a mental illness (“In Chicago, triage for mentally ill before jail,” Associated Press, Feb. 25).
The proposed triage center would function as a place that Chicago-area police could take people experiencing psychiatric or substance-abuse crises instead of the emergency room or, more often, jail. The center would be located at an existing outpatient clinic on Chicago's South Side in an area that county data shows sends the most people with mental illness to the jail.
The initiative is based on successful models in other cities, which have already reaped savings in jail and hospital costs.
But advocates for the plan say it will work only if officers are properly trained.
"In a perfect world, one would hope officers observing a person with a mental health problem would get them to a treatment center," said Dr. Jay Shannon, chief of Cook County Health & Hospitals System.
Shannon said recent high-profile police shootings might have been avoided with a functioning mental health triage center and officer training.
Last December, a 19-year-old Chicago resident named Quintonio LeGrier called 911 asking for help three times while in the throes of a psychotic break due to untreated severe mental illness. During the first two calls, LeGrier was hung up on because he was too erratic to answer all of the dispatcher’s questions. When officers finally responded to the scene, they found a frightened LeGrier clinging to an aluminum bat. Moments later they fatally shot him.
Spurred by outrage over the LeGrier shooting and others, Chicago is now training more officers in crisis intervention training (CIT) to help them learn how to interact with people in crisis. By the end of the year, about 35 percent of officers will have that training, said Chicago Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
In Illinois, court-ordered treatment in the community – also known as assisted outpatient treatment (AOT) – is only practiced in some parts of the state and with varying frequency.
A mental health triage center could effectively fill in some of the treatment gaps in areas that don’t currently utilize this life-saving, evidence-based program. But, as others have noted, a triage center is just one tool in a toolbox that must also include statewide AOT and other mental health diversion practices.
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