County Judge Nelson Wolff says community policing, arrests, and incarceration have their place, but he is pushing ahead with an innovative way to fight Bexar County's recent spike in street crime--beefing up the county's mental health programs, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Wolff says there is a clear connection between mental illness and destructive behaviors like gang members, drug abuse, and violence.
"What we see in our criminal justice system and the terrible things we see happen to people when they don't get help early, how that mental illness can deteriorate," he said.
Wolff is putting together a mental health summit for next month at the Tobin Center downtown. He says the focus will especially center on the religious community, because in a lot of families, especially where a strong parent does not exist, a pastor is generally the first person who can notice and act upon mental illness issues in a young person.
"Mental illness can lead to drug addiction, it can lead to criminal activity," he said. "If only we could reach out and get help for that person before it leads to that."
He says new statistics show that one in five families in Bexar County is hit by mental illness. He says this has a lot to do with the region's crime problem, and a significant number of people who are booked into the Bexar County Jail have mental health issues.
The summit will discuss ways pastors and other community leaders can help identify and treat mental illness in your people, and how community resources can be made more readily available. He says it will also end the 'stigma' of having, reporting, and getting treatment for a mental illness.
He says nobody would feel embarrassed or stigmatized to get treatment for a broken bone or for cancer, and mental illness should be handled the same way.
"Mental health is an illness no different from our physical health," he said. "We're beginning to recognize this."