PULLOUT:
“I don’t think there are enough agencies to provide (mental health) services in Franklin County to people who need and qualify for it,” Stinchfield said.
Jailed and jaded
Struggling with mental illness, inmate Daniel Jackson says he just cannot get the help he needs. He’s not alone.

FARMINGTON – Daniel Jackson wanted out of jail so badly last month, he climbed the chain link fence at the Franklin County Jail, crawled over the tangled razor wire and, cut and bleeding, escaped through the woods.

In and out of trouble with the law since he was a teen, and living with mental illness, this 25-year-old man wants to get his life together and get the help he needs to break a cycle of crime and drug abuse. In many ways his story mimics others behind bars who are struggling with mental health problems.

For now, Jackson remains in jail on a charge of being a fugitive from justice in New York after failing to report to his parole officer as he finished out a sentence for another escape.

In Maine, he racked up charges of terrorizing and reckless conduct for a Wilton altercation this summer and now faces a new charge – escaping from the Franklin County Jail.

Jackson, born in New York, escaped from a police station while he was in that state being questioned about a robbery that he says he didn’t commit; the charge was later dismissed. He had slipped off the handcuffs and climbed up through the ceiling but police caught up with him about a block away, he said.

He was sentenced to 18 months to three years for the attempted escape and served two-thirds of that time. Jackson has one year left to serve on his parole.

While living in New York with his older brother, Jackson failed to report to his parole officer and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Although he was advised against it because of that outstanding warrant, Jackson wanted to come back to Maine where most of his family has lived since 2000. He also wanted to see his girlfriend, who, he said, is pregnant with their child.

Confined to jail

Dressed in inmate orange, a subdued Jackson sat in a room at the jail Monday talking quietly about his situation. Nearby, a guard stood watch beside a half-wall petition, while the shouting and banging from Jackson’s sister, Angela Taylor, disrupted the quiet. Taylor, who is 10 years older than her brother, is also confined to the Franklin County Jail.

Taylor, who lives in Jay, is accused of helping her brother escape the county jail by driving the get-away van on Aug. 13. She told a judge she cooperated with police to help find her brother, who was eventually captured in Farmington Falls. Taylor, who has withdrawn her plea on an unrelated drug charge, has been charged with violating her conditions of release in connection with the escape.

Asked why he fled the county jail, Jackson said he’d had enough of being locked up.

“I felt at that point and time, I didn’t want to die in jail,” Jackson said. “I didn’t want to live anymore. I’m pretty much sick of this.” He was on the lam for a little over 11 hours when he turned himself in, worried about his sister.

“I went all the way to Randolph and then came back to Farmington Falls,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave my sister like that … if I killed myself.”

After he was taken back into custody he was treated for the injuries received going over the fence, including 11 stitches to his hands, wrists and legs. He was also put on suicide watch for several days and categorized a maximum security risk.

No medication

Jackson claims he has been deprived of medicine he needs to keep his psychological disorders in check and, had he had access to medical care, he might not have flown “off the handle” during his recent court appearance.

When he appeared in court Aug. 25 for arraignment on the charges stemming from the Wilton incident, Jackson screamed insults at a prosecutor, yelling obscenities and disrupting the courtroom after his bail was set. He was ordered held on $50,000 cash bail, and is not permitted to have contact with his girlfriend.

Jackson was diagnosed with bi-polar, or manic depression, a condition that causes a person’s mood, thoughts and behaviors to change dramatically and sometimes violently, in 1987.

He has faced bouts of depression and hyperactivity and all he wants is the mental health services and medication he needs, Jackson said.

He also would like to gain the social and work skills he needs to support his family and be a good husband and father, he said.

“I know that I could do much more,” he said. “I need help … if I can’t reach that point what’s the point of living? I’m tired of the door … and they don’t care and won’t help.”

Jackson also said he suffers from drug addiction and has been unable to quit cocaine, although before his most recent stay in jail, he was coke-free for a couple of weeks.

Previously, he said, he thought he could handle his mental health problems by himself without prescribed drugs. But now, he said, he realizes he cannot.

Some of his anguish stems from seeing a woman swallow a packet of drugs while police were questioning her in New York. She later died and Jackson says he’s traumatized by the event.

He’s asked to receive medication and mental health services but they “move as slow as turtles,” Jackson said.

Last time he was at the Franklin County Jail for a domestic assault charge in 2003, he said, he was sent to Augusta Mental Health Institute for treatment. He needs more treatment, he said. That just wasn’t enough.

He doesn’t understand, Jackson said, why lawmakers keep making stricter laws but provide no help for people in trouble to break the circle. People need to learn skills to get jobs and to get the care they need, he said, otherwise they’re going to continue breaking laws.

“I refuse to be part of the circle,” Jackson said, convinced he’s a better man than his past reflects.

No simple solution

The process of getting inmates the mental health treatment they need is not a simple matter for county jails, said Sandra Collins, jail administrator for Franklin County.

It’s certainly not that people don’t care, she said. There are simply not enough mental health care providers to cover all the needs, Collins said.

If a person doesn’t come into jail with an appointment with a psychiatrist or with a prescription for medication, it takes a while, sometimes as long as three to four months, to get inmates evaluated, she said.

Within 72 hours of any inmate’s first court appearance an intake is done to determine what services they might need that are provided at the jail, said Goyo Stinchfield, who works for Community Corrections Alternatives, which provides mental health services to the jail.

There is no waiting list for jail services but there are criteria that need to be met for services, including mental health. People may have trouble adjusting to being in jail, he said. If counselors feel the person meets criteria, then services are offered.

“If the individual is comfortable within the jail, we don’t push them to seek services outside,” Stinchfield said.

The person also has to cooperate.

“We cannot just say ‘Can you take John Doe?’ We have to get information to make a proper referral to some agency or service,” he said.

In Franklin County lately, some of the providers have been willing to come into jail to provide services but a person must leave the jail to see a psychiatrist, Stinchfield said.

That’s where the three- to four-month, worst-case scenario, waiting list comes into play, he said.

Not everything can be done in a 1.5-hour intake evaluation, Stinchfield said. Counselors need to see what’s normal and what’s abnormal for a person, if their problems are ongoing or just adjustment issues from being in jail.

At or before the 30-day mark, a comprehensive assessment is done to get a bigger snapshot of what the person has been going through, Stinchfield said.

It’s roughly a 10-page assessment on behavior, history and so forth, he said.

“Here in the jail, we are very much limited in our possibilities because even the agency has rules about taking an inmate for services,” Stinchfield said, and it’s not limited to mental health services.

They might not want the inmate to come in handcuffs or leg chains and they may want a plain-clothes officer to bring that person to a visit.

“I don’t think there are enough agencies to provide services in Franklin County to people who need and qualify for it,” Stinchfield said.

Even when someone is referred to an agency, that agency may want more information and the person’s background history before they see that person, Stinchfield said. The process of passing along and then reviewing all that information takes time and most people don’t understand that, he said.

The state build a new detention facility four years ago specifically to house mentally ill inmates but too frequently there are not enough beds to accommodate those in need, so custody of the inmates bounces back to county jails.

Oxford County Sheriff Lloyd “Skip” Herrick, said the sheriffs in Maine have met with Gov. John Baldacci to explain this has become a real problem for inmates and for taxpayers.

Larger jails in Penobscot, York and Cumberland counties are better equipped to handle the mentally ill than smaller jails. But, in Oxford County, for instance, the jail has one cell available to isolate those with mental illness. If that is full, mentally ill inmates are housed in the main cell blocks, with up to or more than a dozen people in them. When those spaces are full, Oxford County transports inmates to York County or other jails, which costs the public up to $400 per day.

“We are not equipped to deal with them,” Herrick said, many of whom are in jail on probation violations, because these inmates are “more susceptible to hurting themselves or getting hurt by someone else.”

‘I write poetry’

Jackson’s stay at Franklin County jail started in July after police were called to a Wilton apartment complex where someone reported hearing a gun shot. Jackson evaded arrest for a week and has refused to discuss the incident, although he faces charges of terrorizing and reckless conduct with a firearm.

He has pleaded not guilty to both charges. The bail amount levied is too high for his family to post, so Jackson is resigned to a long stay.

Before being arrested this summer Jackson said he did odd jobs to support himself but didn’t provide any details and only laughed softly when asked what he did.

He wants to marry his girlfriend and said the woman’s young daughter calls him “Daddy.”

He likes that and wants to make a good home for her, her mom and her unborn sibling, he said, even though the court has ordered he have no contact with them.

“I look at her as my own child,” Jackson said of his girlfriend’s daughter.

The new baby is expected in March, he said.

If his legal problems are resolved he wants to go home to his family and work and not live off the state, he said.

“I write poetry,” he said. He thinks he might be able to sell that.

For now, he said, “I just feel like I’ve been set up to fail. It’s not working.”

“I want to be there for my family,” he said. “That’s what I want. I want to make it better for our children.” Staff Writer Jessica Alaimo contributed to this report.