Dart: ‘We're Criminalizing Mental Health'

Tom Dart: 'We're Criminalizing Mental Health'
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart speaks during a news conference in Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011. More than 30 years after finding bones beneath John Wayne Gacy's house, authorities have identified William Bundy, a 19-year-old Chicago construction worker who disappeared in 1976 as one of Gacy's eight unnamed victims. The announcement by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart on Tuesday came nearly seven weeks after the sheriff's office issued a public plea for families of young men who disappeared in the 1970s to submit DNA samples for comparison with the victims' remains. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart speaks during a news conference in Chicago, Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2011. More than 30 years after finding bones beneath John Wayne Gacy's house, authorities have identified William Bundy, a 19-year-old Chicago construction worker who disappeared in 1976 as one of Gacy's eight unnamed victims. The announcement by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart on Tuesday came nearly seven weeks after the sheriff's office issued a public plea for families of young men who disappeared in the 1970s to submit DNA samples for comparison with the victims' remains. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart says mentally ill jail inmates are overwhelming his staff. For now, though, he’s not backing calls for Chicago to reopen six mental-health clinics it closed this spring.

At a Logan Square forum about the clinics Wednesday night, Dart said too many people with mental illnesses lacked professional care. “When we don’t fund services properly, they end up in my jail,” he said.

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