Editor:
I’m responding to “Lawmakers to get early holiday gift: base salary bump to $106,000″ (Reading Eagle, Nov. 23).
Berks County has experienced the perfect storm. State mental health facilities closed starting in the 1970s. We have corrupt manufacturing and distribution of synthetic drugs and lawmakers who remain silent.
A dentist wouldn’t suggest braces without an X-ray. A surgeon wouldn’t cast an arm without an X-ray. Yet so many mentally ill addicts in Berks have been sent to prison without a mental health evaluation.
Why are addicts isolated at the presentencing hearing? Disability Rights PA has advocates to help. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the federal substance abuse resource, isn’t reaching us families. Where’s the law protecting mothers who want to be involved in their adult child’s recovery? We are not invited to any form of involvement because our child is over 18.
The emotional devastation thrust upon families due to lack of laws is real. Our addicts are isolated at the presentence hearing, so the probation officer and public defender have no understanding of mitigating circumstances. As a result, they guess as to which offenders should get mental health treatment and who goes to prison, long-term. The result is a generation of men and women who come home exactly like a veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dawn Koffke Houser
Hamburg
Source: Berkshire mont