OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A new program in Mississippi is designed to help people who need mental health care services while they are jailed and facing felony charges. The Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center at the University of Mississippi School of Law announced Wednesday that it has a two-year collaboration with the Mississippi Department of Mental Health.
An attorney working for the MacArthur Forensic Navigator Program hotline will provide information to judges, prosecutors, sheriffs, public defenders and relatives of people in jail, said Cliff Johnson, the MacArthur Justice Center director. “Everyone involved in our criminal legal system knows that Mississippi, like many states across the country, has for too long allowed people struggling with mental illness to remain locked up in our county jails when what they really need is access to quality mental health care,” Johnson said in a news release. “Our hope is that this new program will bring an end to needless human suffering, take pressure off sheriffs who don’t have the training or resources to handle these situations, and make families and communities more stable," he said.
The hotline attorney, Stacy Ferraro, has represented people charged with capital offenses and juveniles sentenced to life without parole. She said people who need mental health services should not be left in jail “to spiral deeper into darkness.” “My experience has taught me that many of the people arrested in our local commun.