Canadians with mental illnesses denied U.S. entry

[PMedMoe]

Say what??  ???

Article Link

More than a dozen Canadians have told the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office in Toronto within the past year that they were blocked from entering the United States after their records of mental illness were shared with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Lois Kamenitz, 65, of Toronto contacted the office last fall, after U.S. customs officials at Pearson International Airport prevented her from boarding a flight to Los Angeles on the basis of her suicide attempt four years earlier.

Kamenitz says she was stopped at customs after showing her passport and asked to go to a secondary screening. There, a Customs and Border Protection officer told Kamenitz that he had information that police had attended her home in 2006.

“I was really perturbed,” Kamenitz says. “I couldn’t figure out what he meant. And then it dawned on me that he was referring to the 911 call my partner made when I attempted suicide.”

Kamenitz says she asked the officer how he had obtained her medical records.

“That was the only thing I could think of,” she says. “But he said, no, he didn’t have my medical records but he did have a contact note from the police that [they] had attended my home.”

Stanley Stylianos, program manager at the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office, says his organization has heard more than a dozen stories similar to Kamenitz’s.

The office has also received phone calls from numerous Canadians who have not yet had encounters with U.S. customs officers, but are worried that their own mental health histories may cause security delays while travelling south of the border for business or family trips.

“We get calls from people who have concerns about being stopped because they know this is an issue,” Stylianos says.

So far, the RCMP hasn’t provided the office with clear answers about how or why police records of non-violent mental health incidents are passed across the border.

But according to diplomatic cables released earlier this year by WikiLeaks, any information entered into the national Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC) database is accessible to American authorities.

Local police officers take notes whenever they apprehend an individual or respond to a 911 call, and some of this information is then entered into the CPIC database, says Stylianos. He says that occasionally this can include non-violent mental health incidents in which police are involved.

In Kamenitz’s case, this could explain how U.S. officials had a record of the police response to the 911 call her partner made in 2006, after Kamenitz took an overdose of pills.

RCMP Insp. Denis St. Pierre says information on CPIC not only contains a person's criminal record, but also outstanding warrants, missing persons reports and information about stolen property, along with information regarding persons of interest in ongoing cases. It also can contain individuals' history of mental illness, including suicide attempts.

The database contains anything that could alert authorities to a potential threat to public safety and security, and all CPIC information is available to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, St. Pierre says.

But he says the golden rule is that an officer searching CPIC must contact the police service where the record originated before acting on any information from the database.

According to an RCMP website, the CPIC database stores 9.6 million records in its investigative databanks.

More at link

 

[BadEnoughDudeRescueRonny]

Having specialized in Mental Health Policy and Practice during my Master's, I can say that this article is a bit distressing, to say the least. There's a few reasons why.

First, it elevates the stigma already associated with mental illness. It further legitimizes the belief that "mental illness is wrong" and that all mentally ill individuals are violent and unpredictable. To some yokels, seeing that US Border Protection identifies the mentally ill as threats makes them believe that all mentally ill people are threats to security, in one way or another. Now, I'm not saying that all mentally ill individuals are harmless. I've had to deal with psychiatric patients while working as an ER Aide and while working on my Master's I compiled interviews from local psychiatrists and Psych RNs. Heck, I was once attacked by a particularly aggressive patient in full blown bipolar mania and had to deal with paranoid schizophrenic patients in acute psychosis, but to be frank, individuals like that don't comprise the majority of psychiatric patients (except for patients at places like Penetang). However, the fact of the matter is, most mentally ill individuals are usually safe to be around, if they're compliant with their medication and see a psychiatrist on a regular basis. Higher risk mentally ill individuals may be placed on a Community Treatment Order, where they receive involuntary and mandatory medication, but the vast majority of mentally ill patients outside of places like Penetang aren't on Community Treatment Orders.

Second, it perpetuates misunderstanding, fear and hate of the mentally ill. It alters them being perceived as suffering from an illness to a security risk. Look what happened to Muslims after the US essentially deemed them to be a security risk. This escalates the already severe lack of knowledge the average person has about mental illness.

Finally, the fact that the woman in the article was denied entry over an isolated incident demonstrates a misuse of sharing police databases. If there was a pattern of police calls concerning her mental health, yes, she could be a potential security risk, but one call? I hardly doubt she's going to attempt suicide on a plane. Now, having read the article, this woman does definitely have some issues, including substance abuse issues and ongoing mental health issues, but she's not a violent psychotic. A secondary inspection was perfectly warranted, but a denial of entry was a bit over the top.

This article shows how sharing police data for US Homeland Security can go awry. While I do think that database sharing is a great idea to identify real threats, in this case it caused an over-reaction. Just as a side-note, she really shouldn't have asked the Border Protection officers how they got her medical records. That would just cause suspicion.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Earlier this summer, some new guidelines about keeping records where police are called to non-criminal mental health calls were announced - applicable highlights mine:

Ontario police chiefs are moving to seal off sensitive mental-health information from being disclosed when their forces provide background checks for job seekers or would-be volunteers.

The change is part of new guidelines to be unveiled Monday by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police to address the patchwork of procedures used by forces across the province.

Police verifications are common for people applying to be security guards, truck drivers, warehouse employees or casino workers. Schools, nursing homes and other organizations dealing with vulnerable people also use police checks to screen job seekers or volunteers.

While not binding, members of more than 50 forces, including the Ontario Provincial Police, have started training to use the new guidelines, said the chairwoman of the panel that drafted them, Susan Cardwell. She is records manager of the Durham Regional Police.

Police forces in British Columbia and Manitoba are preparing similar initiatives but Ontario is the first to draft consistent, province-wide guidelines, she said.

(....)

People with mental illnesses often have non-criminal contacts with the police, such as someone attempting suicide, a patient requiring an escort to a hospital, a neighbour calling 9-1-1 to report a person in distress.

Patients and advocates have long complained that such incidents are recorded into police databanks and can end up released to third parties.

Mr. Fritsch said his office receives calls about the problem almost every day. “Often our clients say they won’t even apply for a job because they know their mental-health record will be released. It has a chilling effect,”

The impact of the disclosure of those records goes even beyond job hunting ....

Globe & Mail, 25 Jul 11

 

[Angry56789]

Dont know if this helps....but what the heck;

June of this year my girlfriend and I had to go to the US for a funeral, we were driving and her uncle accompanied us. He was convicted almost 20 years ago for break and enter. Heres the kicker, he is diagnosed for Schizophrenia. He always maintained he was out for a walk and it began to rain very severly and very very fast, he was lost, so decided to find an unlocked car and got in the back to wait out the rain. Waiting it out he fell asleep and the police were called. Regardless of his thoughts that he did nothing wrong because he didnt harm the persons car, and that this was a small town with some hard headed cops he was charged and convicted anyways.

I have no idea why he has never applied for a pardon,, but that is a different story altogether. We went to the border crossing and straight away when question we brought this to light of the US border guards. We were brought inside, where our uncle was asked some follow on questions about his arrest and mental health condition. We paid I believe it was $77 for a waiver that was stapled to hsi passport and there you go. On the way back he just had to return the slip back to the US border guards....very polite to us that day, unlike the champion of a border guard we got when crossing back into our own country...but again....thats another story.

Currently in the process of getting uncle a pardon, first and only arrest and conviction in nearly 20 years....hoping for the best.