I read the recent article by Michelle Theriault Boots, “An Anchorage woman broke into a house bloody, half-dressed, screaming she’d been raped. She was charged with 6 felonies.”
From my personal experience, the Anchorage police do not have the policies nor the training to properly deal with an individual experiencing a psychotic break, either because of trauma or a mental illness.
The Anchorage jails do not have a system to properly care for an individual having a psychotic break that promotes recovery. Alaska Psychiatric Institute, even running at capacity, would not have enough beds to care for acute care psychiatric patients.
This article is simply one more example of a state that is unable or unwilling to properly care for individuals in crisis.
— Faith Myers
Anchorage
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