In a move to build what will be the state’s first long-term mental health facility, members of the New Mexico State Legislature may be soon looking at committing up to $1 billion to get the project going.
Public health and law enforcement officials in the state have long argued for the need to build a combined behavioral treatment and substance abuse center, contending that such a facility would be able to help repeat offenders who may have mental or addiction issues.
Advocates have also suggested that five separate centers placed in strategic locations around the state might prove particularly effective.
In testimony before the legislature’s Courts, Corrections & Justice Committee, reference was made to what is called the “Miami Model,” a program that has diverted offenders challenged by serious mental illnesses into community-based treatment and support services.
Established in the year 2000, the Miami and Dade County’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project has not only provided needed treatment care but, according to the publication CNS Spectrums, has led to a decrease in daily incarcerations, prompting the closing of one jail facility “at a cost savings to taxpayers of $12 million per year.”
Bernalillo County Commissioner Eric Olivas told the legislative committee more than half of those currently booked into Metropolitan Detention Center in Albuquerque are suffering from some sort of substance abuse.
“We can start treatment in that facility and do our best to do that, but they have to go somewhere,” Olivas was quoted as remarking in the NM Political Report.
Olivas added: “We can’t incarcerate our way out of this problem.”
Although lawmakers most recently in spring 2023 appropriated some $10 million for the construction of such a facility, it is expected that a proposal for considerably more funding will be introduced once the second session of the 56th Legislature is gaveled to order on January 16.
By Garry Boulard
