(upbeat inspirational music) - More than 70% of people in US jails and prisons have at least one diagnosed mental illness or a substance use disorder or both.

And up to a third of incarcerated people have a serious mental health illness.

And that makes an already difficult job even harder for law enforcement.

Peoria County Sheriff Chris Watkins joins me now to talk about conditions at the Peoria County Jail.

Good to see you, Sheriff.

- Good to see you.

Thank you for having me.

- That statistic I just said, how does that relate to what you're facing in the county jail?

- Very close, we have about 280 individuals in our jail right now, and over 50%, probably closer to 60%, have been diagnosed or we know that there's some type of mental, well, mental health issue, substance abuse issue, that they're going through.

- And when you know that a visitor to your jail has issues like that, how much more on guard are people?

Are they doing anything specifically or not doing anything specifically when it comes to that inmate?

- We have a screening process when they first get to our facility, and then we have 24/7 medical staff on site.

We also have a full-time mental health counselor who reports to the doctor.

So we're giving them the resources, but it's still, when you're dealing with over half of the 280 population, it's a lot to handle.

Our jail was not built to handle that, honestly, because some of these people are violent, they can't control their actions.

We cannot force medicate, and if they don't wanna take their medication, it kind of really puts us in a tough position.

So we do what we can.

Unfortunately, sometimes we have to put 'em in the isolation cell, which doesn't do them any better, either.

But we have to protect themselves and the other population from 'em.

So it is tough.

We have a tough job.

Our correctional officers are dealing with that every day.

We're still a little bit low staffed and it's hard to find people that wanna do this job, honestly.

But thankfully, we do have people that do want to.

- That's interesting that you said you can't force them to take medication.

I would guess, at least for some of the inmates, they are in there because maybe they were off their medication to begin with.

How, I mean, how does that work when, say someone's bipolar, they don't wanna take their medication, so they're acting out.

I mean, so there's really nothing, from a healthcare standpoint, you can do about that?

- There's case law out there protecting some individuals from forced medication.

20 years ago, we could force medicate.

But it's hard to find, there's been lawsuits, there's been, you know, you have to find that even balance to do that.

So we have Department of Human Services, the state, so when we think someone is really bad, that they need significant help, we go in front of a judge.

If the judge agrees, they can order them down.

There's a couple facilities, Alton, and one up north, where we can send them for months at a time, where they're evaluated and they can get forced medicated down there because of legislator and the staff that's down there.

The problem is, is they're short staffed at these facilities.

There's not enough bed space because the mental health issues are just skyrocketing right now.

It's been like this for a few years at least.

So I have one individual that was sentenced, a judge ordered them to go to DHS to get help back in August, and they're still in my facility.

So they've been ordered to go.

So it's unfortunate because, and that's why we're doing a jail master plan.

We're probably gonna do some type of addition to the jail that, really, I want to focus on these individuals that need this, maybe a softer type structure, instead of these isolation cells.

So that's the plans ahead of time because I know the county jails in Illinois are the last stop.

When DHS doesn't have any bed space, our local hospitals, their mental health units can't handle them, they end up in my jail and I don't wanna let them just sit in an isolation cell and not do anything with them.

So, because when they do get out, they're just gonna be right back.

So it's tough.

It really is.

- If you had to guess a percentage of the people who are in your jail because of whatever substance abuse or mental health issue or issues they might have, what would you say that is?

- I would say 10 to 20% that are actually, that's the specific reason why they're in jail.

It's hard to judge because a lot of it is undiagnosed, honestly, so we sometimes can diagnose that while they're there, but it takes a little while to go through that screening process.

We do a little bit for substance abuse, but actually last week, I just started, we're really looking into touching those individuals that are only there for two or three days that are not, they don't go through the whole withdrawal process when they're hooked on the harder drugs.

Meth, heroin, fentanyl.

We wanna touch base with them while they're there for a couple days.

Because a lot we're seeing, because of the legislature, that they are getting released two or three days instead of being held for a couple weeks on a bond.

Now because of the no cash bond, they're getting released on these minor, but still important offenses that they keep reoccurring because of the addiction that they're on.

So we wanna get 'em Suboxone, there's some other medication that we can get 'em.

And there's grants out there now that we're looking at applying to, there's an opioid settlement that just came down about a year and a half ago that it can strictly be used for people that are incarcerated to get them off drugs.

Because if we can treat that, it will help reduce crime in Peoria, and that's our goal.

- When you talk to sheriffs in surrounding counties, Fulton, McLean, Tazewell, are they seeing some of the same issues?

- Yeah, we have these meetings with the Sheriff's Association, the 102 sheriffs that are in Illinois, and we're all going through the same thing.

They don't have the facilities to hold them.

Some of the sheriffs have newer facilities that helps.

They're all doing it, some of it's a smaller scale, some of it's even larger scale, but we have 180,000 people that are in Peoria.

So I mean, we're a pretty large county for Illinois.

So we are definitely one of the bigger ones downstate, south of I-80, that are dealing with the mental health problem.

- And as far as, you know, building onto the jail or building a new jail, hiring the people to staff that, that takes a lot of money.

- A lot of money, and that's where I doubt I'm gonna get a new jail.

I mean that's, right now with construction costs, it's just, you'd probably have to raise people's taxes and that's not good either, right?

So that's where we're looking, thinking outside the box, can we just do an addition?

Some of the jail is just, it's 30 years old, or 40, over 40 years old, which doesn't seem like it's very old.

But when you have 24/7 operations and you have individuals that are just intentionally breaking things, there's a lot of wear and tear.

So if we can get away with just doing an addition that's focused on mental health and a few other things, that might be very helpful to us.

- What do you say to folks out there who are of the mindset that, hey, so-and-so is in jail because so-and-so committed a crime, so and so deserves to be in there.

Whatever, whatever happens, happens.

I mean, how do you, eventually that person's gonna come out.

- Yeah, and the good thing is we have court systems in place in Peoria County.

We have Veterans Assistance court, we have mental health court, we have DUI court, we have all these courts that try to give people a second chance and work with them through the process.

But the number one thing is you have to want to change.

If you don't wanna change, we're just gonna see that revolving door with them.

And sometimes, they can't change because of their mental health issues that they're dealing with.

So that's where it's tough and everybody in the nation right now is trying to figure out that solution.

- Have you talked to folks in the area, maybe other Peoria County officials about how we can work with, not you specifically, but how mental health advocates can work with folks to try and prevent them from getting to the jail in the first place?

- Yeah, that's happening.

We saw the old Heddington Oaks building in West Peoria now is getting converted through Carle as a juvenile mental health.

That's huge for us because we're starting to see just a significant increase in the juvenile mental health issues that we're seeing on the street.

And they need a better system, more staffing, because if we can deal with it while they're juveniles, when they're 16, 17 years old, then hopefully they can find that solution before they become an adult.

And then they're making those serious, more serious crimes, and then they're in the system forever.

So there's some really good resources in Peoria.

It's just, there's no magic wand that we can fix this, there isn't.

And unfortunately, I don't see it getting better before it gets a little bit more worse.

And that's where I really have to make sure our facility can handle and not just, I truly do not want to just throw somebody behind a closed door and keep 'em isolated from people because we're seeing that makes them worse and they're never gonna get better doing that.

So I trust the outside resources are gonna work, but also I wanna make sure why they're in our facility, if they end up there, I wanna make sure that we can deal with them while they're there, make 'em better.

- How long have you been with the sheriff's department?

- Oh, 19 years.

- 19 years.

Okay.

Have you seen this mental health issue become worse over those 19 years?

- Yes, I started out in the jail, so I got to work with it firsthand.

And it's nothing like it is right now, just nothing.

I mean, more violent.

People can't control themselves.

We're getting more attacks on our staff.

And I think us as people, I know more people that are dealing with mental health issues, too.

I just hired a mental health professional to deal with our staff.

I have 180 employees and a lot of them are seeing traumatic incidents.

It's the first time ever we've done this.

So now I have a mental health counselor that's talking strictly to our staff too.

Because we have to take care of ourselves, not just the detainees.

- And over the last few years, mental health has become such a prevalent issue that we're, at least we're talking about it now in society.

It's not a just shove it under the rug type of thing.

How are jail officers, sheriff's deputies, being trained in terms of maybe spotting someone, "Hey, that person may have a mental illness," as opposed to he's just being belligerent?

- Yeah, I mean we're evolving to, we have CIT training, which is specifically to deal with individuals that are in distress.

Maybe they haven't committed a crime yet.

We have ERS in Peoria, which is great.

So a lot of times we get called to a call that there's been no crime committed, but a parent doesn't know how to deal with a 16-year-old because they're losing control.

So we show up, make sure the scene's secure, and the ERS counselor, or mental health counselor, will come in, evaluate them, sometimes take 'em to one of our local hospitals to be evaluated.

Sometimes they can just diffuse the situation as long as we're there for security.

And you're also seeing Peoria police now, they're piloting a co-responder program that's not launched yet, but it's the same in theory, to have an officer and a counselor together.

But also these counselors don't wanna go in these scenarios, situations by themselves.

They do not want to because there's a lot of unknown, especially when you deal with somebody that has mental illness.

So we have things going, it's just there's not enough of 'em.

Sometimes our officers are waiting two hours for the counselor to come.

Sometimes we have to call an ambulance.

So now we're tying up an ambulance for a mental health situation when they could be doing something else and our officers could be doing something else, so.

- You know, being a police officer, a sheriff's deputy, is a lot more than just carrying a badge and a gun.

I'm curious how, when you get to a situation like that, or even just working in the jail, how you balance being an authoritative figure and making sure this person doesn't hurt you, hurt someone else, but also having compassion.

I mean that's a balance, right?

- It's almost like a switch, right?

I mean, 'cause sometimes you're in an unknown, you don't know if that person has a gun.

So you're always on edge.

You have to protect yourself and others around you.

But then you have to show that compassion and talk somebody down.

So that's why not everybody's police officers.

It takes a special person to do it.

And we're just constantly training.

It's not a perfect process, but we try to, we really do.

- How do you see the future of this, I mean, obviously these mental health problems, they seem to be getting worse with people.

And you've said what you would like as far as resources and space at the jail.

Is there anything federally that's happening that could help out the county jails around our area?

- I have not seen anything federally.

That's a good question.

Statewide, we're starting to see some.

The federal opioid settlement, that was a huge settlement that's coming down.

So that's giving us some funds because that medication that we're giving them to get off meth and heroin and fentanyl is extremely expensive.

So it's nice that that settlement happened because now instead of using taxpayers monies, we can use that actually to address the issue.

- Is there, I know there's a correlation, but someone with a mental health issue and drug use, have you seen that the drug use causes mental health issues?

Or is it you may have a mental health issue and you turn to drugs for some kind of help?

- It's both.

Sometimes the drug use translates into mental health.

That's why behavior health is, I mean, that's kind of the broad stroke of how we talk about mental health and substance abuse because they correlate not all the time, but a lot of times they do.

If it's alcohol abuse, drug abuse, one of those usually leads to the mental health issue or the mental health, that's the only way they know how to cope is drug and alcohol abuse.

So yeah, we see it all, really do.

There's a lot of moving parts to it.

- Sure.

When we're talking about mental health, what are some of the mental health issues that you see most in the jail?

- Not being able to control themselves, which usually sometimes leads to violence, and sometimes it has nothing to do with violence at all.

It's just they're lost.

They need help.

I've had one woman bring her son to the jail because she just couldn't control him.

And then he starts attacking us in the front of the jail.

And it's just an individual that just has no control over themselves.

They refuse to take their medication.

It's tough to see, it really is, because you just want them to get help and you know the help is there, but now you're talking about forcing that help on somebody.

And that's that slippery slope that medical personnel try to decide what to do with that.

We don't want 'em to come to our place.

We really don't.

But unfortunately we are, you know, after, remember Zeller's 30 years ago when Zeller was open in Peoria, the old ICC or the ICC North campus.

That really helped our population in the jail.

Jail population shrunk because we weren't dealing with those individuals.

They were getting help at a facility that they were, they couldn't just leave freely either, you know, they were getting their help, 'cause that takes a long time.

We're starting to see the fentanyl crisis is taking, these individuals that are on fentanyl and meth, it's taking them months to get off that and actually think clearly to get help.

Unfortunately, and like a couple years ago, heroin, it took a couple days .

We could get somebody off.

They could start thinking clearly, taking their medication.

The fentanyl is really making a dramatic impact in our communities, substance wise and mental health wise.

- Well, if it doesn't kill you outright, it's certainly killing something up top.

- Yes.

- Absolutely.

And, you know, I read the arrest reports every day and I keep seeing meth and meth and meth.

Why that drug?

Is it because it's so cheap to make?

- So, when I was undercover 10 years ago, meth was the whole operation where they're making these huge meth labs in Peoria.

Now it's totally different.

We hardly ever see a meth lab.

Now the meth is coming from south of the border and they're mixing fentanyl with it.

So it's very cheap.

Very cheap and it's very addicting because of the fentanyl that is in there.

We still see some heroin.

You're starting to see fentanyl and heroin.

But meth is very cheap and it's really plaguing all of our communities right now.

- I read a statistic that somebody in a jail or prison with mental health issues is 10 times more likely to try and commit suicide.

Have you seen that in your jail?

- Absolutely, and that's where we put 'em in these isolation cells.

But all that does is make it worse for 'em.

But what do we do with them?

We have a great, Dr. Bernice Gordon-Young.

She's a city councilwoman, but she's also our full-time mental health expert, and she's been very creative in trying to keep them engaged with her.

But she's only one person.

And we have over 125 people that have these conditions.

So we're trying, though.

We've only had the mental health expert for a couple years now, but we're starting to see, it kind of calms everybody down.

And that's what we need in jail.

We don't need people creating issues, 'cause some correctional officers are like, "I don't wanna deal with this anymore.

I'm gonna find another job.

This is too hard," right?

So I could use three more of her in our jail.

- We're gonna hear from her a little bit later.

Our Phil Luciano talked to her and we're gonna hear what she's doing.

You know, there's still some people out there, like I alluded to earlier, that really don't have sympathy for anyone in jail.

And there's some people out there also who think, "Oh, jail, what's wrong with that?

You're getting three meals a day, you got a bed."

But obviously, it's not a fun place to be.

- No, our Google reviews are not very good.

No, it's not a fun place.

I don't want it to be a fun place.

But also, we also have some evil people that have done some evil things that have nothing to do with mental health.

And it's our job to keep them secure while they go through the court process and then go to prison or whatever happens to 'em in their case.

But it's our job to make sure they're safe and people outside the jail are safe to keep them where they need to be.

So it's, we have a lot of different people in jail, honestly, a lot of them, a lot of mental health, a lot of people that just made one bad mistake.

They're good people, they're in there.

We also are doing the reentry program with Carl Cannon.

So the individuals that we see are gonna get out that made a couple mistakes, but are still good people.

We are trying to work with them to be productive members of society.

So we're trying all kinds of things.

I don't want them just to sit in there and rot because I know they're just gonna keep coming back.

- Yeah, well, Sheriff, we appreciate everything that you and your deputies and your jailers do, and we hope you win the lottery.

We can get some more people in there to help with these mental health issues and get you up to full staff.

- Thanks, Mark, for having me.

Appreciate it.

- All right, thank you very much.

- Thanks.

- Well, as we mentioned earlier, our Phil Luciano went to the Peoria County Jail to talk to two employees there who are helping people transition back into society.

- [Phil] At the Peoria County Jail, mental health is important among detainees, but it's also important for the safety of jail staff and the wellbeing of the community.

That's the view of Dr. Bernice Gordon-Young and Angel Cruz, who work together to address mental health issues facing detainees.

A job that gets harder all the time.

- We've got more people that are struggling with mental health.

We've got more people that are struggling with substance use.

- [Phil] Gordon-Young is the jail's lead mental health counselor, assisted by four part-timers on weekends.

Cruz is the reentry case manager, preparing detainees for their next step, either prison or release.

Together, Gordon-Young and Cruz seek the best combination of services to put each detainee on a better path.

That starts with a medical and mental health screen upon intake.

- Often when people come here, they have had so many broken relationships and have struggled with trusting people that we really work hard to build trust first.

- [Phil] Trust can help establish dialogue, which can be important to keeping peace at the jail.

- And then another big important piece of that that we do is just listening.

They just want to be heard.

We've really, we've avoided a lot of things escalating just because they wanted to be heard.

- [Phil] Other times, it means speaking hard truth.

- And then we also have to be very, very clear with folks and say, "That's irrational."

Or we have to, what I call, what I say, call 'em on their mess.

- [Phil] Some detainees have severe mental health issues that call for extensive counseling and possibly medication.

This can lead to a breakthrough, even if a detainee has had mental health diagnoses previously.

- When we start having those conversations about choices, and sometimes I'll say, "Let's go back a generation.

Let's look at some things, let's unpeel some layers."

Then there's this recognition of, "Wow."

Sometimes we go back to fourth grade, just looking at, were you struggling in school?

Identifying, well that wasn't ADHD, that was anxiety, you know?

And yes, you have a short temper, but it really is because you're struggling with the lack of control and being controlling related to anxiety.

- [Phil] Getting to the root of mental health issues can be the first step in breaking the cycles of bad choices.

- We try to disrupt that behavior here.

Otherwise, you're going to perpetuate the problem every step of the way - [Phil] For some detainees, counseling and treatment might continue in prison.

Even there, they can make positive changes, which start at the jail.

- Let's start it now.

Whether you're going back into the community or you're going to prison.

The reason why this door is constantly revolving and you're in and out is 'cause you're wasting time, doing time.

What does that look like?

- [Phil] For detainees heading for release, the jail helps arrange connections for needs such as employment, education, and housing along with substance abuse treatment and mental health counseling.

- And so if I can just have an opportunity to just let 'em know there's somebody here that's willing to support you, they may continue with counseling once they're released from here.

They may actually follow up with the resources that are being provided.

And that's how we reduce the recidivism rate.

- Welcome back, Phil Luciano joins me now.

And boy, I'm glad that we have people like that.

And not only the people you talked with, but our jailers, our sheriff, our sheriff's deputies.

That's a hard job.

- It's an incredibly hard job and getting harder all the time.

And it's not necessary, it is part because of the behavior of some of these inmates, but also because, frankly, we're just becoming a more aware society.

And I'm not talking woke or anything that people are pejorative about.

I mean, we're just learning and appreciating more about the value of mental health treatment.

And, you know, years and years ago, I mean, people might be watching this and saying, "Well it didn't used to be like this."

Well yeah, it's because we didn't really realize what a big factor mental health is regarding, well, everything, but especially criminal behavior.

- Sure.

- And so, as the more we learn about all this, you've gotta be, if you're a jailer or a deputy, you've gotta be multi trained just to get through a day, let alone really helping these folks moving forward.

And that, you know, we want, as people, we want simple solutions.

Here's the problem, here's the solution.

And the stuff you're talking about tonight, this is really, really complex.

And you know what that means?

Expensive.

- Expensive.

And like the sheriff said, you can't force anyone to take medication, which might make them better, because we're a litigious society and they could get in a lot of trouble doing that obviously, but sometimes even medicine for some people just doesn't work.

- Right, so there's a lot going on.

The medicine, the treatment, the diagnosis, the getting them to do it and all that stuff.

And you know, as the sheriff says, there are just people who are just plain evil.

It's not really mental health, it's evil.

They're choosing to do bad things.

Those people in the jail, they're there for a relatively short time.

They're being held until they can be pushed through the judicial system and then they move on.

Either they're found guilty or sent to prison, right?

But there are also a lot of people who are at the lower level, and maybe they might be going through the state system through court, but they might've already been sentenced and they're there for a while.

Either way, these are not the headline grabbers, these are not the kind of cases you see on "Law and Order."

These are the lower level, either misdemeanors or lower felonies, and these are people who are coming back again and again and again.

And a lot of times, it is the mental health aspect.

And so from the outside you can say, "Wow, well we don't wanna spend that money."

Or, "Ah, you're in jail.

That's too bad."

But if we have that attitude at, at the very least, if you don't care about people as people, you gotta care about the money aspect, right?

And it is just very expensive to keep arresting and re-arresting and re-prosecuting and just housing these people again and again and again.

It's not cost effective.

- Yeah, well it's good to see that we do have programs here locally who are trying to keep people from going to jail in the first place.

- The hard thing though is that, and this was sort of maybe 30 ish or a little more years ago, places like Zeller, that used to be, you know, I don't wanna call it institution, it sounds so bad, but a place where people could go and get mental health help.

Well those places like that throughout the state got phased out and that was a budgetary decision by the state.

So what happened to those people or those people who are their equivalent today?

Where are they?

A lot of 'em are homeless, a lot of 'em are committing crimes, a lot of 'em are just not getting the help they should be getting.

And so maybe not a great decision.

Now we gotta deal with it.

- Yep, we certainly do.

Well, let's tell you a little bit about our next show.

You gotta see this coming up in just a minute.

- Always a great time to get out there and see some of those things that we don't normally see and bring them to our viewers, right?

And we've got some of those places and people that you're just gonna wanna sit back and relax and enjoy here.

- All right, thank you very much for watching.

We hope you enjoyed our program.

Check us out at wtvp.org and on Facebook and social media like, oh, the Instagram.

- The Instagram.

- Have a good night.

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