Cabán questions 80% rise in serious mental illness and ACT/IMT placements

My other questions, and I know that the chair is going to do a phenomenal job picking up on these mental health questions, but the number of people in DOC custody with serious mental health illness, it's increased by over 80% since 2022.

It's a much steeper increase than the general population.

that we're seeing.

And so my questions are, how does this increase affect your ability to provide quality care for people in custody, which I know that my colleague, Councilmember Rano, alluded to.

And when you refer, I'm just asking them in succession, when you refer somebody to ACT or IMT, do you confirm if and when they have been placed and how, in your experience, how long does it take?

To assign somebody to a team.

And then I'm going to close that out and finish by just saying that with that serious mental illness increase by over 80%, it speaks to a larger problem outside of corrections.

You don't control who comes into your care, and I understand that.

But what are you guys doing?

Doing to, with other agencies, to ring the bell on this crisis.

These are people who are living with serious mental illness.

They should not be criminalized for said mental illness.

And that means that there's a deep, deep failure in the continuum of care outside of corrections.

And so what does that work in collaboration look like?

Those are the three questions.

Thank you for indulging me, Chair.