Expungement News!

I was excited to read today about how the State of Wisconsin is going to look at its expungement laws and how changing them will affect the lives of those with criminal records.  This may be a great step forward for our state! I hope that decision-makers can keep their eyes on what is truly important - the fact that when one has served his/her time, there should no longer be things standing in the way of him/her moving their lives forward in a productive way. My fear is that decision-makers are going to focus too much on how the courts might get bogged down with this rather than actually think outside the box and simplify the whole process. Crossing my fingers for good news...

More about what Wisconsin is doing can be found here:  https://publicpolicyforum.org/sites/default/files/FreshStart_FullReport.pdf
or the press release:
https://publicpolicyforum.org/sites/default/files/FreshStart_MediaRelease.pdf 

Mental Health and Violence

So frustrating watching the media and others blow mental health issues out of proportion and also mislead the general public. Most people with mental health disorders are not violent people. In fact, Mentalhealth.gov says that "The vast majority of people with mental health problems are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Most people with mental illness are not violent and only 3%–5% of violent acts can be attributed to individuals living with a serious mental illness. In fact, people with severe mental illnesses are over 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crime than the general population."

Let's work together to break the stigma of mental health. Let's make sure we are doing all we can to be healthy ourselves, and to educate others about the realities of living with a mental health disorder.

I recently finished Keith O'Neil's book, Under My Helmet. A great read and a great way to get started on this issue!