GOSHEN – In the wake of the homicide of Robert Ryan of Greenville, allegedly at the hands of his son who reportedly had a history of mental health issues, Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler has issued a plea.
“Treatment and public safety should not be viewed as competing objectives,” he told Mid-Hudson News.
The DA said effective treatment can be a very effective public safety tool.
“To be meaningful, treatment has to be more just referring somebody to counseling,” he said. “When families realize that there is a problem, they have to try to get the person to their primary care physician. If they can’t get them to that, they have to try to get them to county social services. They have to try to involve everybody they can, understanding that a lot of time these individuals don’t want to be treated. But a lot of times it’s more than just sending somebody to treatment. Sometimes it does require court ordered programs if the person has problems with the criminal justice system.”
Hoovler said a court could listen to a psychiatrist evaluate them and it come up with an individual plan to try to help the person, whether it is medication, whether it is counseling; but the problem with all of these programs, there has to be sustained action after the person completes the court ordered program that led them to the criminal justice system.
“That doesn’t happen, and a lot of time it doesn’t happen because there is no community treatment available out there. We have mobile mental health, we have intensive case management, but we have find better ways – the state has to fund better ways – to keep high-risk people connected with treatment,” he said.
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