Guest column: Mental illness is not a crime — why treat it like one?

Axios Tampa Bay recently ran an excellent article on Florida's broken mental health system. Keeping significant stories like this where they should be, in the public eye, is all that matters.

After 13 years with mental illness, a Tampa man is finally getting treatment, though it came at the cost of another man's life. His story illustrates Florida's approach to those in need of mental health care. 

As criminals, they rely on cops and courts to solve problems that should be resolved with medical intervention. His delay in treatment resulted in him committing a horrific crime. A crime that put the case in the judicial rather than medical system. 

This, even though prosecutors agreed he was insane at the time of the incident. 

Two weeks before, he had walked into the Tampa police station and stated he was worried he might hurt someone. A Baker Act followed, with his ultimate release soon thereafter. 

His mother said of the release, "a bus pass and a ‘good luck.’" There was no place for follow-up treatment, a major point of the article, and because he had committed a felony, his case couldn't be moved to mental health court. 

An ugly reality is that about 10 to 25 percent of inmates in U.S. prisons are diagnosed with serious mental illness. That compares to 5 percent among all Americans. 

The article ends with the need for Florida to join other states in funding short-term residential programs, allowing those released from a Baker Act to spend a few months in supportive housing. 

In dealing with mental illness for the past 14 years in our family, we believe that last statement is the most important. 

Richard and Kathleen Marquis of St. Augustine have written frequently on the topic of mental health. They are the parents of an adult son with schizophrenia.