When the Boxes Don't Fit: How our Mental Health System is Creating Criminals / A.J. Hendry

“This boy will kill someone unless we do something!”

The words should have chilled the very air we breathed.

But, this wasn’t the first time they had ignored me.

They moved on.

Repeating well oiled phrases and reciting too frequently repeated excuses.

“Unfortunately, this is outside of our scope.” “We just don’t have the capacity.” “Until we receive a diagnosis our hands are tied.”

In the jargon, they forgot the human.

Only the anguished, battle weary face of his mother sitting across from me signalled that my words had even been spoken.

You see we’d done this before, his mother and I.

When this process had began we were given hope. We were told if any group of people were able to help this young person than it was these people in the room with us. Mental Health workers, ACC case managers, Police Sergeants and members of our local DHB with an ear in Wellington.

But, as meeting after meeting went by we realized that it was just more of the same. There were no solutions for her son’s situation.

His situation was too complicated, we were told. His diagnosis too abnormal and “undefinable”. He did not fit the box.

The funding we so desperately needed to get him some help was trapped in a box.

A box created in Wellington and wrapped in the sticky tape of bureaucracy.

We knew he was at risk. Recent events had made this clear. But, the risk he posed was not just a risk to the community at large, he was also at risk of harming himself.

The young person we had gathered to support was not a criminal. He had not been convicted of any crime. No, he was just child who was extremally unwell and in need of intensive care and support.

Unfortunately, his form of sickness couldn’t be healed by a doctor’s visit or a string of anti-biotics.

His illness was hidden.

And as we all sat in a room talking about what we couldn’t do to help him, he was left to suffer the consequences of his illness.

And at the end of it all… after weeks of discussion, and months of false hope and failed promises…. We were left with this single consolation.

After being told for months that there were no supports available to this young man, we were informed that “if he offends and is picked up by the police, we will then be able to access the support he needs.”

I remember the righteous indignation and anger of his mother as she realized what she was being told.

If she was to get help for her mentally ill child, she would have to wait until he became a criminal!

This boys story is only one of several stories I have come across during my career as a youth worker.

It is the story of a system so broken, that it is unable to deal with the real human needs of some of the most vulnerable members within our community. A story of a young person who – because his illness did not fit a box some politician had created in Wellington – was unable to get help or support to prevent him from endangering his community and entering the criminal justice system.

The story of a family who were forced to watch as their son self-destructed before their eyes. Of a mother who lived in terror of what her son might do, all the while knowing that he lacked both the skills and ability to make wise decisions and that it was only a matter of time before he did something that everyone would regret.

We have been told that our mental health system needs more funding.

But, the problem goes deeper than that. When a young person – who is evidently needing help and support - can be referred to a mental health provider and still not get the support they need because they don’t fit some specific box or criteria, then we don’t just have a funding problem, we have a system problem.

Our mental health system doesn’t just need more funding, it needs to be redesigned.

It cannot be acceptable for us to allow people to slip through the cracks just because we can’t fit them into a specific box.

We need to do better Aotearoa.

At the moment our government is considering whether or not to put another few billion into building fresh prison facilities. We are told we don’t have enough prison beds. We are told that our prisons are bursting at the seams.

But, when will we recognize that the reason we need greater prison facilities is because we are currently filling them with the mentally unwell.

Perhaps if our focus was on supporting those with mental illness, rather than housing “criminals”, then this young person would have been able to get the support he so desperately needed.

Perhaps if we could move our mindset as a society away from punitive approaches to punishment, towards more restorative and preventative measures… than maybe we could prevent a whole group of unwell and vulnerable people from becoming criminals in the first place.

We all have a hand in making this sort of reform possible.

Both the government of today, and that of the past have operated under the belief that kiwi’s want and demand tougher more punitive approaches to justice in this country.

Before, any government is going to be courageous enough to overhaul this system, they need to hear from us that we, as a society, are ready to try something new. Your voice can make a difference.

Our current government has shown a willingness to be moved on matters which move New Zealanders.

Let’s make our voice heard Aotearoa. Let’s advocate change that matters.

Aaron Hendry