Regarding the article "Expert: Illness not indicator of violence letter" by Teri Figueroa published April 26: Ms. Figueroa misses the crux of the matter. The fundamental issue is how to fix San Diego's disjointed, inefficient and ineffective mental health system. Not the hypothesis whether or not mental illness may result in violence. It can, if left untreated.
Right now our mental health system consists of agencies and organizations that, if affiliated at all, are connected by the thinnest of threads. I am not sure there is a lead agency with true oversight/coordination capability.
Theoretically, County Mental Health is probably the lead agency. Just look at its organizational chart. It's hard enough to understand that setting.
Add the court system, District Attorney's office, each city police department, county jail system, parole and probation, state mental health system, private mental health concerns, individual psychiatrists, university medical schools, and various other entities and it can be overwhelming.
Next try to interpret the state's convoluted Welfare and Institutions Code regarding the mentally ill. WIC Section 5150 allows a 72-hour hold, a Gallinot Hearing allows a 14-day hold, LPS Conservatorships are extremely complicated, a Riese petition must be filed in order administer an incompetent person medication, etc. The entire process is interwoven in judicial proceeding with accompanying adversarial contests.
Underlying this labyrinth is the true focus of attention, the mentally ill. The root cause is the fact they can't be cured, only treated. Somehow our system has lost this salient point.
Identification, tracking and treatment (voluntary or otherwise) of the mentally ill should be the goal. The consequences of lack of treatment are suicide, substance abuse, violence, victimization, homelessness, criminalization and early death.
I challenge the Board of Supervisors to get out in front of this issue and lead. Use your bully pulpit to denounce Proposition 1E, the temporary reallocation of mental health funding.
Otherwise we will continue to have events like the ones mentioned in Ms. Figueroa's article or worse, like the Virginia Tech University's massacre.
William Dean Hardy lives in Carlsbad.
