In one of numerous public statements, confessed killer Michael Woodbury said that he had mental illness problems that the Maine prison system did not address when they released him in May.

But Woodbury isn’t the only local man currently in prison and considered mentally ill. In late May, Windham resident Philip Urquhart led police on a high-speed chase through three counties in southern Maine and rammed a deputy’s cruiser. Investigators said he wanted police to kill him. This was shortly after he was let out on bail after a suicide-by-cop attempt he made on April 20 at the Augusta Wal-Mart after his wife told him she wanted a divorce.

In an interview on Tuesday of last week, Cumberland County Sheriff Mark Dion expressed continued frustration with the way the state is funneling the mentally ill into the state’s correctional system. He said correctional centers are overloaded with mentally ill inmates they are not equipped to handle.

“Really, we’re a hospital masquerading as a jail,” said Dion.

“We’re right back where we were 100 years ago with criminalizing the mentally ill,” he said.

When elected sheriff nine years ago, Dion said the annual medical cost was $634,000.

“We’re probably going to spend $3.3 million next year,” he said, “and mental health services are a significant chunk of it.”

Dion said if someone breaks their leg in Monument Square, they can expect an ambulance ride to the hospital. Dion said if someone has a mental breakdown and causes a disturbance at the same place, they can’t expect the same thing.

“They’re not going to call (an ambulance),” he said. “They’re going to call the police.”

“Jail is a bad place to try to get healthy,” he said, adding that there is no sunlight and little fresh air.

“It takes a toll on a healthy person, imagine what it does to someone who’s mentally ill,” he said.

Dion said Gov. John Baldacci cut $100 million dollars in mental illness services from MaineCare, the state equivalent of Medicare. The cut became effective on the first of this month. More money will have to come from the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department to treat people in jail instead of mental hospitals, he said, meaning Maine taxpayers will be paying for the mental health treatment through property taxes instead of state taxes.

“We clearly have a crisis in corrections,” said Carol Carothers, executive director of the Maine chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. She said there is a correlation between the closing of mental hospitals and increases in the prisoner population.

She said the nation has signifigantly reduced its amount of mental hospitals in the past decade, as well as lowering the capacity for each one.

“A few years ago it had 400 beds, now it’s got 92,” she said.

Carothers said that her organization reported that 25 percent of Maine prisoners are on psychological medication, while the national average is 16 percent.

Dion reports a much higher-than-average use of medication at the jail. He said his medical unit reported recently that 98 percent of the inmates in the Cumberland County Jail are on a psychological medication. He said that of the 482 inmates contained last Tuesday, between five and 10 percent should be in a mental hospital instead of jail.

Dion said his mentally ill inmates can be put on a waiting list to get into the Riverview Psychiatric Center in Augusta. He said there is a high set of entry standards.

Potential patients must present a risk of harming themselves or others, and must be in good physical shape. Dion said he’s had to hold onto inmates who mutilated themselves until they were well enough to get into Riverview.

“On any given day, I have more people being treated for some mental health issue than Riverview,” he said.

Dave Profit, superintendent of Riverview, said that the number of beds he has available varies. He said the center has room for 92 patients, and 48 of those are earmarked for civil patients and the other 44 for criminal ones. Of those, he said 24 are being used right now for long-term patients who could be hospitalized for years.

The leftover beds can be rotated between those being held to quickly restore to competency, evaluated for the courts or used for inmates with serious mental problems.

“Typically, that number is less than 20,” said Profit.

“We’re frequently at 100 percent occupancy,” he said. He also said it can be difficult to tell if mental illness is what caused criminal behavior.

“Having mental illness doesn’t mean that you can’t have committed a criminal act, and it doesn’t explain all criminal acts,” said Profit.

Dion said there is a “raging debate” in the correctional field on what should be done with the mentally ill.

“Jails appear to have defaulted into a place for people with behavioral problems,” he said.

“Most families have been touched by mental illness, it’s not as alien as some people think,” said Dion. “Why should the Sheriff be the best medical officer?”