California State Senate Leader Proposes to Expand Mental Health Services

See this article from the LA Times.  An excerpt:

“It’s time for action,” he told reporters at the Capitol. Steinberg proposed expanding a program providing mental health services to prison parolees with mental illness from 1,500 to 5,000 people. Those in the program have a recidivism rate of 24%, nearly a third of the rate for those not in the program. 

“While the governor appeals a federal court order to release thousands of state prison inmates, we also need to be smarter about crime by putting more resources into ensuring people who leave incarceration don’t commit new crimes and go back in,’’ Steinberg said. 

His plan also would add 2,000 crisis treatment beds in residential facilities as an alternative to the more costly treatment at emergency rooms. Steinberg also proposed deploying 200 more mental health triage workers to assist the mentally ill with treatment, housing and educational services. He would also create 25 Mobile Crisis Support Teams, funded with $500,000 grants to counties, to help people at homeless shelters, jails and climics get short-term crisis care.