No sooner did the decision come down about the state of Georgia awarding its largest settlement ever for a death in one of its mental hospitals, but the reporters for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are finding even more disgraceful care of Georgia’s mentally ill population. This time it’s in our state’s prison system.

Apparently Georgia’s system is being audited again, after being under federal supervision from 1984-1998. The report shows that people are dying…both to suicide and to homicide as a result of lack of therapeutic services or resources for the mentally ill who are incarcerated. The article cites that only 16% of Georgia’s prison population is identified as mentally ill (what it doesn’t say is schizophrenic or autistic). I’m wondering how many more qualify if you look at borderline personality disorder or other diagnoses.

One could infer from reading this article that Georgia seems to clean up its act when the feds are watching. In 1999, 132 counselors provided 2,382 hours of psychiatric and psychological help to 4, 425 mentally ill inmates. In 2006 (8 years after the federal supervision was lifted) 188 counselors provided 1,830 hours of care for 8,054 mentally ill inmates. For those without a calculator that’s a little over 13 minutes a year per inmate. PLEEZ…

In another article next to this lead article, it is reported that Georgia has been giving inmates tainted toothpaste from China for who knows how long. The toothpaste, contaminated with high levels of diethylene glycol, also known as DEG had a warning issued on it by the FDA. No one knows for sure how long the inmates have been brushing with this stuff, but the prison system has contracted with the vendor for toothpaste since 2002.

Meanwhile, the powers that be (FDA , Georgia Poison Control, a professor at Emory…anyone they could get to comment on it) say that inmates likely didn’t digest enough to harm themselves, despite lab testing that found their was 5% of DEG in the toothpaste, when the allowable limit is 0.1%. These are mentally ill inmates, remember?

Anyway, my friends in the biomed world could likely have a heyday with this news – tainted toothpaste for inmates that have seen a rise in violent deaths. I wonder if the reporters understood the potential link.

One thing is for sure, the disenfranchised in Georgia are truly disenfranchised.

What does this have to do with parenting special needs kids? Well, I don’t think the reporters at AJC have found THE story yet. There is more to systemic failure than prisons and mental hospitals in Georgia. Let’s look to where most of these children were first, where they were either not identified as needing help, or placed in isolated special programs that were really designed to warehouse, not to education…what about Georgia’s schools. Are they doing anything to slow down the numbers of people headed to prison or mental hospitals? Wouldn’t early intervention be the solution? Couldn’t schools make a difference?