Eugene Zuniga is just the latest in a long line of tragic victims. The 36-year-old Denver man, accused of stealing a bicycle and found incompetent to stand trial because of severe mental illness, has been warehoused in jail for five months while he awaits treatment in the state mental hospital.
Civil-rights attorney Kathleen Mullen, who for years has represented mentally ill Coloradans suffering gross neglect by the state, can name dozens – maybe hundreds – of others like Zuniga.
She tells of Vietnam vets who committed murders in the throes of flashbacks due to untreated post-traumatic stress disorder; a mentally ill man jailed for an insignificant misdemeanor who acted out, spit in a guard’s face and then was charged with felony assault so he would remain in prison without treatment even longer; untold schizophrenics, psychotics and people with chronic depression who seek relief through illicit drugs and end up in prison for years – or lifetimes – without appropriate treatment.
Far from extraordinary, the Eugene Zuniga case represents the predictable outcome of a calculated political strategy. In their desire to appear tough on crime, elected officials have pursued a sweeping public policy that ignores the mentally ill until they commit a crime, then locks them away in prison.
Since 1990, Colorado has built 16 prisons – an average of one a year at a construction cost of $83,000 per bed. At the same time, it has bled millions from mental-health treatment programs, reducing the number of available beds in state institutions by more than 35 percent.
Community treatment programs have fared no better, except in Denver, where judges ordered the city to provide services for the mentally ill under the 1994 Goebel Settlement Agreement. Goebel was a lawsuit filed on behalf of the city’s mentally ill who had been abandoned and left to die under bridges and in alleys because of a lack of treatment programs.
Even with the settlement, getting the court-ordered services was a struggle.
In 2001, a judge threatened to jail Marva Hammons, director of the Colorado Department of Human Services, for contempt of court because of her “insolent” disregard for the state’s obligation to fund the programs.
The Goebel Settlement was a small victory, Mullen said, but it was far from a solution.
“There’s never been development of a whole system,” she said.
So the Zuniga debacle offers yet another glimpse into what dismantling the mental-health system in Colorado and pouring money into prisons over the past 15 years have produced.
When the courts declare defendants incompetent to stand trial, it’s a de facto conviction.
There’s no place to put them but jail.
A study by the Department of Corrections estimates that by 2008, the seriously mentally ill will constitute at least 20 percent of the state’s prison population.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
Mullen said many long-term patients at the state hospital in Pueblo could be released to outpatient programs in communities – if they were available. Defendants found not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial might never have found their way into the criminal justice system at all if they had access to treatment programs. And thousands of inmates in state prisons could be productive citizens if only for drug, alcohol or mental-health treatment.
But a coordinated diversion, evaluation and treatment program doesn’t exist.
“There’s nothing like that available,” Mullen said.
It’s a humanitarian crisis to which Gov. Bill Owens remains oblivious. In his 2007 budget, he called for an 8.7 percent increase in corrections.
Never mind the immorality of the policy – in pure economic terms, it’s reckless.
A 1999 study in New Mexico found that for every $80,000 spent on treatment of mentally ill offenders, $400,000 was saved on prison costs.
Every Colorado taxpayer, no matter how cold-blooded, should be demanding an end to this cynical political charade.
It’s a waste.
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
