Advocacy Unlimited, Inc. Newsletter

Advocates from CT Valley Hospital (CVH) are regular contributors to the AU Newsletter. The graduate advocates have been active in placement and working on making improvements as well as having their voices heard. These are their opinions and do not necessarily reflect those of AU.

By Patrick A. Arbelo

When a person is found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect he or she is remanded by the court to be transferred to CVH. This as you know is done so that the acquittee will receive treatment for their particular psychiatric disability. Once here the hospital's job is to treat the whole person, both mind and body. It is this author's belief that part of the global approach should be an effort to educate and train acquittees for the workforce.

It's these training and educational opportunities that are sorely lacking here on the CVH campus. It is true that one can attain a GED, but a GED in today's economy is practically worthless. One can try to take undergraduate courses through the mail but the numbers of correspondence courses are dwindling rapidly. This decline is due to the shift to the internet as a forum of education. As many know access to the Internet is very limited, and the access one can attain, like a GED, is also practically useless.

As mentioned before the lack of vocational opportunities is a major problem here at CVH. All that is available to acquittees are the following three areas of work: custodial, cashier, and collating work. These types of jobs offer the average PSRB acquittee a bleak economic future here in and out of the hospital. No one would agree that one can live a decent life by becoming a cashier at Stop and Shop or stuffing envelopes for a living.

To alleviate these problems the following must be done: First, acquittees must be allowed to have meaningful access to the Internet here at CVH and off hospital grounds. Second, there must be an alliance with willing corporations who would provide real job training through grants in exchange for tax write-offs. Lastly, the transfer of funds from meaningless and sometimes moronic groups so as to expand work hours here on campus.

I trust that the hospital administration as well as those in the Commissioner's office will take heed and implement these suggestions as soon as possible. The taxpayer spends $800 to $1,400 a day per acquittee at CVH. The yearly operating budget for CVH is approximately $130-million per fiscal year. For what is spent here, acquittees should be prepared for re-entry in society. It is interesting to note that recently a minimum wage increase was implemented in our State. At CVH the hospital increased the minimum wage for all the consumers of psychiatric services as mandated by law. However, the number of hours was cut back for clients! In other words – the pay cut is higher than the wage increase. I wonder why?