I am not one of those who tries to find a relationship between the horrible events at Sandy Hook and every social issue from guns to mental health. In fact, I have great concerns about the resulting fears of those with mental health issues or those with atypical behaviors like Aspergers Syndrome.
However, the refusal of Democratic leaders to confront the state’s revenue crisis with a progressive graduated income tax is a problem for more than just pensioners.
Under convicted felon former governor Rod Blagojevich and the present anti-union Democrat Pat Quinn, Illinois trails only Republican-governed Alaska, Alabama and South Carolina in cuts to mental health programs.
Illinois is Bizarro World, where Republicans are Democrats. That is a real behavior disorder.
Says David Ormsby in the Huffington Post.
Illinois is flirting with its own Sandy Hook massacre.
The confluence between compromised mental health and perpetrators of mass murder reveals itself with painful, pitiful regularity.
That’s why Illinois’ own Sandy Hook looms.
From 2009 to 2012, Illinois has cut more than $187 million or 31.7% from the Illinois mental health budget,according to a report by the National Alliance for Mental Illness. In fact, Illinois ranked #3 for the most aggressive funding cuts of the 29 states that reduced their mental health budgets in that period.
Only South Carolina (-39.3%), Alabama (-36%), and Alaska (32.6%) under Republican governors cut more than Illinois under Democratic Governors Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn.
Recently, because of the Illinois mental health funding squeeze, clinics in Lakeview, the South Side and McHenry County have been shuttered.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Lora Thomas, executive director of the group’s Illinois chapter said in March 2011, “People with life-threatening mental illness are being abandoned.”
Mark Ishaug, CEO of Thresholds, Chicago’s largest mental health provider said this week, “For years, our sector has been decimated.”
While Illinois mental health funding shrivels, mental health care is largely falling in the laps of law enforcement.
Says Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart:
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says the county jail is so overwhelmed with people whose offenses are more attributable to mental health issues than criminal impulses that the facility has become a source of mental health care for the city, and he’s sick of it.
Dart told the Chicago News Cooperative that the system “is so screwed up that I’ve become the largest mental health provider in the state of Illinois.“
Of the 11,000 prisoners detained at Cook County Jail at any given time, Dart estimates that about 2,000 suffer from a serious form of mental illness, he told the CNC. At an estimated cost of about $143 per detainee per day, the overflow from the nearby state-run Elgin Mental Health Center, which can handle only 582 patients at a time, stands to put an undue burden on the jail’s resources.
Dart’s accusations are particularly salient in light of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2012 budget cuts,which included closing six of Chicago’s 12 mental health clinics. The city says its plan to“consolidate” its mental health services will lead to better or equal quality of care for patients, and disputed reports that 2,549 patients would be impacted by the closures, saying 700 is a more accurate figure.
But some critics of the city cuts say the closures will disrupt patient/doctor relationships, and that mentally ill people may not be willing to take an extra bus or see a new doctor in order to stay on their medications.
Paired with Gov. Pat Quinn’s plans to shut down two state-level mental institutions and transition to psychiatric care contracted through local hospitals, the influx of detainees with mental health issues is unlikely to be resolved without some intervention.
Fred Klonsky 
If Illinois, Alaska etc are ahead of Louisiana in mental health care cuts we are indeed in desperate straits.
Yes, geaux, I’m an ILLAnnoysian (I have been spelling it ILLAnnoy) who was recently in NOLA, have been reading about all of Jindal’s cuts (in part, stemming from his ridiculous refusals to take federal Medicaid $$ because of his childish, egotistical attitudes toward the Obama Administration), as well as hearing about it. We were at dinner and, at the next table, a policeman and a social worker were talking about how many more mentally ill people would be winding up in jail, as proportionate to mental health facility closings.