State legislator Steinberg speaks at Gould

USC Gould School of Law hosted Darrell Steinberg, former California State Senate President pro tempore, on Tuesday evening. Steinberg’s lecture, one of the lectures within the Allen Neiman & Alan Sieroty Lecture in Civil Liberties series, addressed the attitude towards mental health disorders in the state of California.

Steinberg started by talking about how during his time in the State Senate, he strived to emulate the kind of legislature authored by one of lecture series namesake, Alan Sieroty, a California senator who retired from the state legislature in 1982.

“I [wanted to] do it for the right reasons, to serve the public, to actually get something done,” Steinberg said. “I don’t quite understand what goes on in Washington, D.C. I understand the partisanship. I do and there’s a place for partisanship. But I don’t understand when partisanship is not translated into product — the product of principle compromise.”

Steinberg asserted that the United States is at the beginning of another great chapter of the country’s struggle for civil rights and civil liberties.

“It’s time that we bring mental illness out of the closet,” Steinberg said. “It is time we stop locking up so many people whose untreated mental illnesses landed them in trouble. It’s time we end the tragic truth that the single largest mental health facility remains the Los Angeles County Jail. It is time to end the belief that mental illness must mean a life sentence of hopelessness, disconnection, unemployment and dysfunction. And it is high time to fulfill a long-held promise.”

He also read several statistics that showed that population reduction in hospitals has coincided with an increase in the prison and jail population over the last four decades. Steinberg argued that people do not get better in prison and that the overwhelming number of people with untreated mental disorders who are put in prison demonstrates the unfortunate lack of proper treatment.

Steinberg also discussed some of the side effects of the absence of mental health care such as a vastly large homeless population, thousands of returning veterans not properly diagnosed and adults not amenable to treatment living with their elderly parents.

He argued that the current system has too many trap doors where people and families do not know where to turn for help. Steinberg said that California has started transforming the system, however, by passing a ballot initiative to fund mental health. He said that this would require a movement from a fail-first system to one focused on recovery, clients and culturally competent services.

Steinberg mentioned three indisputable facts about untreated mental health. He first explained that the issue is pervasive without artificial boundaries. Second, he said that the issue affects most of the public policy issues that the government is called upon to address. Finally, he explained that there are not enough leaders in high positions who have made this problem a state or national priority.

“Our mission must be to eliminate that chasm between that which affects so many and its absence as a political, legislative and funding priority,” Steinberg said.

In addition to hearing personal stories from people in prominent positions, he believes in the creation of a political movement in which new leadership bent on making mental healthcare a priority is cultivated.