Absurdity. The number of people we have completely given up on. Amy a prisonsnd jails americas new asylums . I documentary called bedlam looks at how the criminal Justice System is now the first point of entry into Mental Health treatment for many people struggling with schizophrenia, major depression, bipolar disorder, and more. The instititutions as we sa are e jails. Wherdo p peoe endd up . In and out j jail. Amy wellpepend t houour th filmmaker anpspsychiristst k rosenberg, whose own steter struled witschizophnia. And blaclives maer coounder prisse cuors, who shareser expernce with eking he for herrother nte who s lived th schizofective sorder sce he wasas a teenager. Cooks i ended up calling the police. They came and i had a long talk with them. I said, what you plan on doing it really gets violent . I have never seen him like this. They said, we will just tase him. And i sent him home. We eventually were able to get my brother in a hospital, but that was my introduction to my brothehers Mental Illness. Amy all that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. The New York Times has revealed a trove of confidential military interviews with the navy seals who accused chief Edward Gallagher of war crimes. Gallagher met with President Trump over the weekend at trumps private resort maralago in florida, only weeks after trump overruled his own military leaders and blocked them from disciplining gallagher, despite him being convicted of posing with the teenage corpse in a highprofile war crimes case. Gallagher was also accused of federally stabbing a captive teenager in the neck and shooting two iraqi civilians, but he was acquitted of premeditated murder. In the neverbeforereleased videos, the soldiers tell Navy Investigators gallagher was toxic, freaking evil. This is a clip of the New York Timesproduced video of some of the e soldiers tesestimonies. Liststen carefly. The guy got crazier a and crazier. He was perfectly ok with killing anybody. I s see him play with the night. Let this continue. Amy former Navy SecretaryRichard Spencer resigned over the handling of Eddie Gallaghers case. In syria, heavy bombing and fighting in the Northwest Province of idlib has forced at least two hospitals and 14 Health Centers to close, as tens of thousands of civilians continue to flee the russianbacked Syrian Government offensive. Aid groups say nearly 200,000 civilians have fled toward the Turkish Border as Syrian GovernmentGround Troops advance into the last major rebelheld territory. Approximately 3 million civilianans live in ididlib y of whom have already b been displaced from other parts of syria during previous s rounds f fighting. This is omomar hafyan, w whose family hasas taken sheltlter ina mosque near the border with turkey. Wee were sitting at nigight d susuddenly we wewere hit b by ms during the night. The next day we left everything behind and left because of the intensity of airstrikes. In the morningng, jets alslso sk our neneighborhood. Due toto the intensisity of shelelling, we left. We faced difficult conditions and we reached here. Amy tensions are rising in the gulf of oman as china, russia and iran begin four days of military drills in the significant commercial shipping area and japan announces that it will deploy a destroyer to the region early next year. The gulf of oman has become a center of geopolitical tension after an Unidentified Party attacked two oil tankers in the tankers there in june. The white house blamed iran for the attack, which iran denied. In nigeria, prominent nigerianamerican journalist and activist Omoyele Sowore has been released from prison on bail. Sowore walked free on tuesday, the same day as the release of sambo dasuki. Sowore is a former president ial candidate in nigeria and the founder of the new yorkbased news outlet sahara reporters. He has long worked to expose government corruption and abuse. He was arrested on august 3 after calling for protests against the government. Sowore now faces trial for treason and other charges that his supporters say are politically motivated. In india, protests against the controversial new citizenship law continue to rage, with more demonstrations planned for today. The law provides a path to indian citizenship for undocumented immigrants from afghanistan, bangladesh, and pakistan unless they are muslim. The laws critics say its a step toward the official marginalization of indias 200 million muslims. At least 25 people have died amid the governments crackdown on the demonstrations. This is one of the protesters in bangalore. It seems like they are trying to pretend that they are not hearing us, but they will hear us. Were not going to stop today or tomorrow. We will stop when these acts are we will stop when they hear us and they actually look at us and tell us my we heard you. Hen they have taken action only then will we stop. Amy embattled is really Prime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu has staved off a Party Leadership chchallenge despite being indicd on corruption charges last month. On thursday, netanyahu easily won a primary vote within his conservative likud party. This means netanyahu will once again lead the likud party in israels third general election in a year after netanyahu twice failed to form a coalition government. Mexican Officials Say they plan to file a formal complaint in the International Court of justice against bolivias interim rightwing government over the presence of Security Forces outside mexicos embassy in la paz. Mexican president Andres ManuelLopez Obrador granted longtime bolivian president evo morales asylum in mexico in november after morales was forced to resign under military prpressur. He has since left memexico for arargentina, where he was also granted political asylum. Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard said the alleged harassment of mexican diplomats in bolivia violates International Treaties and the right for countries to grant asylum. Not even in the worst moments of the military coups of the 1970s and 1980s, was the intetegrity put it ririsked. Itit is an internationally known principle across the entire international community, the respect of the right to claim asylum. Amy in immigration news, a 41yearold congolese Asylum Seeker died on christmtmas in a customs and Border ProtectionHolding Facility in laredo, texas, only one day after she arrived to the u. S. Mexico border with her family. Cbp said she was medically screened after she provided papaperwork highghlighting a previous medical condidition. Onsite m medical personnel reportedly cleared her andnd trtransferd heher to thehe holdg facility for processing. A press release from cbp says the woman, who has not been identified, complained of abdominal pain and vomited before she was transferred to a local hospital where she died on december 25. The family has since been released from cbp custody. Her death comes less than one week after a 56yearold nigerian man died in maryland while in ice custody. And in los angeles, prosecutors are considering filing criminal charges against disgraced hollywood film mogul harvey weinstein, who has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and Sexual Harassment by over 100 women. The Los Angeles CountyDistrict Attorneys Office is currently reviewing eight cases against weinstein, who is already facing four criminal sex crimes charges in new york. Can an interview with the New York Post weinstein said he was the forgotten man and claimed he should be remembered for his film contributions. In response, a group of 23 women, including top actresses, responded in a statement saying weinstein says in a new interview he does not want be forgotten . Well, he will be. You will be remembered as a sexual predator and an unrepented abuser who took everything and deserves nothing. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Are prisons and jails americas new asylums . Today we spend the hour looking at how a disproportionate number of people facing Mental Health challenges have been swept into the criminal Justice System, where they lack adequate treatment. Nearly 15 of men and more than 30 of women in jails have a serious Mental Illness, such as schizophrenia, major depression, or bipolar disorder. This is the focus of an incredible documentary by filmmaker and psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg. The film is called bedlam. Very busy. Illness is not something people want to ar. I is no something you want to talkbobout. The state of mental ilesess in t thi country is bond the tripe notion of crisis. It is at a point of comedic absurdity, the number people we have completely giveupup on. Itit is staggering. A l of peop out her suffer from into h health issue. I suffer from it. The pepeop suffer from it. Ere isnt help anywhe. E. Htorically not foughtoror peoe wiwithentall illness. People are rising up a saying, we are sicand tired of our families bei thrown away. No justice no peace. As long as docts s tolete the woworkg conditions in the ououtsid world wont owow whais gog on, then nothinwiwill er ge better. The definition of inninity is repeating ee same thing over and erer again and expecting fffferenresults. The way we treatment etete ill in tss country treat thehe mentally ill in this country is insane. Amy thats the trailer for bedlam. It will be airing on pbs independent lens. Of the voices you heard was that one of black lives matter cofounder Patrisse Cullors. In the film, she and director Ken Rosenberg and many others share their personal experiences with family members who have chronic psychiatric conditions that have pushed them into the path of police officerers, emergency room doctors, and Prison Guards in Los Angeles County. Patrisses brother monte has lived with schizoaffective disorder since he was a teenager. Kens sister struggled with schizophrenia. After the film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in january to a standing ovation, i sat down with Patrisse Cullors and Ken Rosenberg who is also an addiction psychiatrist affiliated with Weil Cornell Medical Center in new york city. In october, he published his book bedlam an intimate journey into Americas Health crisis. I asked him why he chose the name bedlam. Bedlam was the first Mental Institution in the world. It was nicknamed bedlam because that is how people got to know of it. It is a name now synonymous with chaos and craziness. I think it very much dederibes at is haening noin erica,hat the mental ill were on e e stres, i in e jail, part oththeystem that is utterly insane. They lk treatmentesearch, resours. Hence the naname bedlam. For me, this is a professional film and a personal film. It is a film i have say i ive always wanted to make an enzyme was kind ofof dreaded making, frankly, because i never thohout i wouldld share my personal sto. Until it was 40 years old, i never told a soul that my sister was schizophrenic. I grew up in a time and place and it wass jewish called the jewish word for shame. It took me many years to be prepared t to share the story. When i made the film, i wanted to show the tragedy and the trajectory of the seriouslyy memental ill in america, particularly in los angeles which is the epicenter of the crisis. I also realized that families did not know why was telling the story. The viewers did not know why i was telling the story. And i needed to be honest with them and people like patrisse and her beautiful kind brother monte volunteered t to be in the film, to share their stories. I thought at some point, a couple of years into it, the least i cocould do was shaha my story. So when you watch the film, you know the person behind the camera as well as the people in front of the camera. Amy your sister is the reason you became a psychiatrist . Yes. At 14 years old, she was institutionalizezed. My parents would not allow her to be in a hosospital vevery lon when they took her out of the hospital against medicical advi, it was pretty muchch then and there at 14 yearsrs old i decidd i was going to be a psychiatrist stop for a couple of reasons. I thought maybe i could do some good where i saw no good being done. Sesecondly, a psychiatrist seemd understand what the hell was going on in my family and my world. For me beingng in the fafamily therapapy session, and which my parents denounced, understandably, they had enough and they were taking my sister out of the hospital, i thought, this guy it was a guy this psychiatristst really understans things. I want to join his ranks. Amy you tell the history of how the mentally ill are dealt with in the united states. Talk about that through deinstitutionalization and what were seeing today, the mental asylums of our country are this nations jails and prisons. That is correct. The jails are the effect on mental asylums. Deinstitutionalization began in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Wellmeaning individuals did it, president kennedy among them. They had these new drugs comingg out to play. For the first time people with Mental Illness were able to leave the asylums. There were able to live outside the asylums. Asylums at the time were dreadful, for the most part. People werepeople were not gettd there were quite a number of scandals. Life magazine ran an article in 1946 with the title bedlam. Hospitalout a mental not that far from where i lived. Wellmeaning indidividuals and probablyly for the best of reasons, the insnstitutions were closed and mentally ill people wewent out and h hopefully prest kennedy said would be welelcomed into what you call the welcoming arms and warmth of the community. Unfortunately, that never came. Shortly does s the community Mental Health centers never came. When president reagan took over, many for the community Mental Health centers, the few of those that were built, dry up stop essentntially, we took people ot ofhehe asyms, puthem o othe streets, and nowutut theintoto the jajas. Mental illness crimanand wereatat them like criminals. Of crse, they become cycled in and out of the crinal juste syst and exped all of th things that happen, the traumas that happened, poverty becomes a part of the cycle. Poverty makes Mental Illness worse. It may even cause Mental Illness in some way. We have made the situation so much worse. Bringing back the asylums is not an answer, but bringing back here surely is. Amy president kennedy himself, his own sister rosemary, tell her story. Was born with some kind of birth effect, it is not clear commit is not clearly document it. Probably some form of mental retardation. As often happens that she got older into young adulthood, she became more psychotic than anything else. She got the treatment of the day, which was a frontal lobotomy. That is the treatment that won the nobel prize in 1949. The treatment that original helpful person with the mentally ill child was able to get the treatment that do thousands upon thousands of frontal lobotomys. We thought that was the best there was to offer and perhaps there was, which is quite dreadful. Rosemary did not do well. She had to be institutitionalizd for the rest o of her life. As a result, president kennedy when he took office wanted t to take care in some way of people like his sister, the mentally retarded and people with serious Mental Illness. That was part of the genesis of the institutionalization. Amy Patrisse Cullors, talk about your life story with your brother monte. I grew up in a neighborhood in los angeles called van nuys. There were four of us. My mom was a single mom. My brother monte was one of my first best friends. In t the film, you will hear ken talk about his sister in the same way. It was really amazing growing up with him. Plalayful and funny and. I could talk to him about everything. Amy what was the age difference . We are only about three years apart. And his own point, life, we started to see different issues. We did not know it was Mental Health issues. Amy he was your older brother . Yes. He is three years older than me. I believed if monte received early care, early intervention, he probably would have ended up not having to spend the majority of his life inside of a jail cell. But instetead, in our community, we were given criminalization. I remember some of the first signs of my brothers depression, i now understand as depression, was anxiety. I remember him having pretty bad mood swings. Then when he was 18 years old, he was diagnosed inside of the jailtowers los angeles correctional facility, where he was also tortured by the sheriffs department. Amy talk further about that. He started being arrested when he was 14 and you were 11 . Is first arrest was at 14 years old. He was kicked out of middle school and did not end up going to high school. He started using drugs around that time as well. And now, from everything that i know about Mental Health and Substance Abuse, they often go handinhand called dual diagnosis. Ofmother we went to lots jail facilities to visit him and also a lot of rehabs to visit him. He was never treated for Mental Illness. Not until he was in n fact incarcerated. Amy you talk repeatedly in the film, patrisse, about if you will, the illness of shame and how that intensifieses any situation. Absolutely. I grew up in a very private home. My mother, b because she was a single mother, i think she felt a lot of her own shame about being a teenage mom, being poor. We did not talk about a lot of things, including my brothers Substance Abuse and Mental Illness. Thated up straying from and i found a lot of solace in being honest and transparent about what was happening. I found the movement and joining a local organization. While they were not dealing with Mental Illness or lawenforcement violence, they were talking honestly and openly about issues of racism and poverty. I started to make the connection of how i grew up in what was happening to me, my family, and my b brother in particular. Amy Patrisse Cullors cofounder , of the black lives Matter Movement and one of the people featured in the documentary bedlam directed by Ken Rosenberg, which is set to air in april on pbs independent lelens. When we come back from break, patrisse describes how she tried to get help from monte while he was in prison, and after he was released. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. As we e continue to look at how prisons and jails have become americas new asylums. That is the focus of an incredible new documentary called bedlam. Earlier this year, i interviewed director and psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg, whose own sister struggled with Mental Illness, and also one of the people he features in the film. During the film, patrisses brother monte is in and out of jails and psychiatric situations. I asked patrisse how shehe sougt help for h her brother mononte e he was incarcerated and also upon his release. My brother was 23 years old when he was released from his first prison sentence. During his time in prison, we received letters from him telllling us that they had put m in the psychiatric wing of the jail facility. I mother and i were confused. We did not know he had any psychiatric issues. We also did not know we could call anybody. Prisond call a warden or psychologist. We just sort of took his word that they were messing with him. My brother was released from state prison when he was 23 years old. I went and picked him up from the greyhound station. Four not seen him in 4 years. When i saw him, i was very disturbed. He had b been released in boxes and flipflops and a white undershirt. Aroundof looked thinking, is this some sort of joke . He had these dark sunglasses on and his whole posture was completely different from the brother i remembered going inside. I remember putting them in the front seat and askining him, are you ok . He was hunched over and super quiet. He said, yes, im fine. He was sort of tight mouth. And we got to the house, my mother said she kinda pulled me aside and said, there is something wrong with my son. I said, no, nothing is wrong. He just got out of prison and it will take some time to acclimate. Five days and, my brother was completely psychotic. He was completely out of his mind and we did not know what to do. I did not know what to do. My mother did not know what to do. Monday my friends dealt with anything like this. So i called a good friend of mine actually, a teacher of mine and said, this has happened to my brother. Do you know what is happening to him . His partnener happened to be in the school of psychiatry. He said it sounds like he is in the middle of a psychotic amy what was he doing . He was putting on two pairs of shoes, babbling, had not slept. My mother and i were taking shifts to stay up to see he was ok. He was writing things on the wall with toothpaste. It was literally watching someone deteriorate. I was told to call the police. Actually, i was told to call an waslance by the woman who in the psychiatry school. I called the ambulance and i made the mistake in telling the ambulance my brother had just been released from prison. They said, we dont pick up convicted felons, you have to call the police. I battled with them for a few minutes. I said, i refuse to call the police. My brother has been tortured by police in prison. I ended up calling the police and they came. At a long talk with him outside. I said, what you plan on doing it my brother gets violent . They said, we will just tase him. And i sent them home. We eventually were able to get my brother in the hospital, but that was my introduction to my brothers Mental Illness. Nobody warned us. There was nobody telling us no case manager, no caseworker giving us the 411. It was trial and error. It was incredibly, incredidibly scary. Was i in prison, was in solititary confinement a number of times. Is that right . He spent a significant amount of time in theshu. You realized and started educating yourself, and if you do come educate everyone else at the time, but this issue of him going to court and not b being n a criminal court. You found out there was some kind of Mental Health exemption were court you could take him to so he would not again go to the criminal Justice System. So there has always been a Mental Health court, but it is only given to certain groups of people. Monte should first of all, monte never should have been incarcerated. But t in his times of incarceration, he should have been given trereatment and the offer of Mental Health court. The reason why my brother was is because now i am Patrisse Cullors a black lives matter. I know everybody in the local office. The minute my brother was incarcerated, i email the sheriff himself, former sheriff, i mailed the undersheriff, the i aclu. I basically said, get my brother help. They all know what they did to my brother. And not everybody has that access and resource. Was lucky enough to go to a Mental Health court and end up getting some sort of treatment not the best, should have been way better than he received but he did not end up in a jail cell. It i think about people who should have been released. Because he had an old strike on his record, was sent back into jail. Amy can, dr. Rosenberg, talking to you as a director and a psychiatrist, patrisse just mentioned todd. Tell us about todds story the different track he ended up being on. History is painfully typical. Mental institutions, as we say, our jails. Where did they end up . In and out of jail. Amy can you tell as percentages . Oh, lord. In the jail, we think it is one out of four peoplele in jail hae a serious Mental Illness stop we know there are 2000 people as we speak and 20 hours jail with serious Mental Illness. We know there are at least 20,000 to 25,000 people sleeping on the streets of los angeles with a serious Mental Illness. Blowing. Rs are mind amy even the guards, and many are talking about the one thing they may agree with activists on is the issue of they need help, they need training. If the mentally ill are going to be put in prison, these guards are not trained to do with them. We have people on all sides of the aisle involved in this film. Republicans and democrats. I think no matter how you look at it, this is, as we keep saying, and insane process. If youre just interested in dollllars and cents, you know ts is an utter waste of fufunds. If you have any care for your fellow community, humans, you know this is a terrible way to treat people. You asked about todd. His is painfully typical. People cycled in and out of jail. They dont get any kind of jailor judgeassisted treatment, which is extremely powerful. It means you d dont even have o end up in jail just to have to have a grere need forr that and theres a process in place on thee books in which people can get treatment or family members could help their loved ones gett treatment. Amy there sentenced to treatment instead of jail. There are Mental Health courts where if you commit a crime, then you have the option, hopefully, going to a Mental Health work where the judge says, clearly your problem is Mental Illness and you committed a minor offense but you have strikes against you and before you know it, you are in and out ofof jails and the streets. That is Mental Health court. Theres Something Else called assistant outpatient treatmtmen. Ifif you have someone who is refractory to treatment, doesnt get better come in and out of hospitals, even if they have not committed a crime, you can get them a judge to say, hey, look, you need treatment and my job is to help you get treatment before you end up in the criminal Justice System. Todd got neither. Todd got what most people get, bangeds the gavel was and he ended up back in jail and back on the streets and back in sros. Amy and todd had aids . Todd had hiv as well. He was dealing not only with Mental Illness, but physical illness. Unfortunately, that is very common. One begets another. Mental begets illness. Mental illness begets more poverty. Amy describe what happened with your sister and even to this day, this is very difficult, but you do it so poignantly in the film. You have different situations, patrisse and his brother monte has been tilling with this as a Mental Illness for a long time and has opened up her family. Whether or not but the beginning theyey wanted to talk in this w. You and a different track because your parents were so closed to thisis idea of revealg what happened. My sister is very, very sick. I ended up when i was 16, as soon as i could drive in pennsylvania where i grew up, and it aching or personally to mental hospipital more than n o. Withied to revive her treaeatment. She was extremely reresistant, s were my parents. The treatments did not have that much to offer, frankly, that was rt of the e problem. Unlike monte, we were able to find her treatment, not a jail cell which was a remarkable thing when you think about it. But my sisister ended u up not getting proper treatment. When i was starting college, the first month h i started college, she impartially jumped out the window and nearly died. Breaking nearly every bone in her body. It is terrible and tragic. Amy your parents said she was running g from an n intruder. By parents told everyone there was an intruder in the house. I knew the only intruder was in her head and the voices in her head, which probably commandnded her to jump out the window. So i stayed home for twowo year. I did not go away to college. I was trying to help her and my family. After she could walk, pretty much in the second year, i went to college in boston. And never really came home and never went again into her room until just about a year ago in making the film and decided i would confront ththat demon, if you will come in the room in which she jumped. I should say my parents dieie ad my older sister died. So in 2005, i was kind of leftt in charge ofof m merrill. By then, she had resisted every possible effort to treatment. We were unfortunately engaged in a battle i was losing. I found a Convalescent Home for her to go to. She refused. She did not what to see a doctor. She persisted and sang there was nothing wrong with her. Her problems were maybe spiritual, but not psychological. Sadly, i finally called the police. My parents said, never called the police on your sister. Upper two weeks, she did not pick up the phone and i finally called the police. They found her dead in her bed. Amy so this is what prompted you to make the film. Exactly. She passed away in 2005. In 2010, my kids were launched as adults. No small feat there as well, right . I thought, what is the most meaningful thing i could do with my life at this point . I love my patients. I love being a psychiatrist. I love being a film maker. I thohought, at this point in my life, what i could really do is make a film about the tragedy of the seseverely mentally ill fory sisterer, but more so for millis upon millions of americans in some ways, for myself as well. Was doingsse, as ken this film, yuko launched the black lives Matter Movement. You founded the dignity and power now. Raceabout the convergence and class and when someone is mentally ill, what happens to them. When police intervene, what they do to them based on their race and class. I think it is important for people to understand in e each city, each county, each state, they decide how theyre going to respond and relate to people with Mental Illness. In Los Angeles County, the decisions that have been made had largely been around investing resources into criminalizing people with Mental Illness. What you have been are mostly poor folks, mostly black, mostly brown, mostly women who a are domestic survivors, Domestic Abuse survivors. People who had the marchins. Folks, street sex workers. Really, these are the folks who have been left to fend for themselves. When you have a Mental Illness and you dont have family support, i think that is something i always feel like i am not doing enough and that my family, if we could just do this more or that more and watching this film, out of all of the subjects in the film, i realized that our family is doing a lot. And you could see the difference. You could see the difference around the outcome for each of these folks. It reminds me that we really left it to family members to have to be the caregivers. And when we are not trained to do so and when we have our own lives and many of us either have to give up our lives or sacrifice our lives and not because we dont want to, but we need more resources. We need more support. I remember on one of my brothers last hospitalizations, me yelling at the social worker, what am i supposed to do when he comes home . What else is there for him . You all have to help us figure this out. Been able tove build really great relationships with the other doctor in the film, dr. Diaz. My hope is that folks watch this film and come out of the shadows, come out of the shadows for themselves and talk about their into illness. Amy talk about easel ford. Is all ford was a young black man from southcentral. Schizophrenia. Everybody in the community knew it, including law enforcement, lapd 77th precinct. He would go play basketball every day at the basketball court. On his way home from thing basketball, he was apprehended by lapd by two officers who shot him in the back. He had had confrontation with those officers in the past. They knew about his history of Mental Illness. And when his mother came forward , she told the public, my son did not deserve to die. He had Mental Illness. Till this day, we dont know why those cops shot and killed him. But what we do know is that more than half the people who are killed by an officer, whetethert is by a taser or a gun, have some form of Mental Illness. Amy and you talk about the police knowing monte as well. They know him as a person in the community and why Community Policing is s so important, whee they understand who the people are, who the community is. Pololiceand argue, amy, should not be the First Responders to people with multiple Mental Illness. We have to reinvest our dollars into real communitity Care CommunityMental Health care. As we have talked about on this program before, los angeles is trying to build a 3. 5 billion jail. And one of those gels is a Mental Health jail. Our slogan is, you cannot get well in a cell. Well in aant get cell. Begging them to rethink this plalan and to put those dollars into communitybased solutions. Amy talk about the protest because one of your your most powerfulul solutioion always is activism. Talk about your protest. Over 35, 40 organizations launched a program. It is to stop the joe program and to get those dollars to be reinvested into communitybased solutions, including communitybased clinics that can deal with Mental Health and the Mental Health issues and our communities. We launched a protest where we built 100 replica jail beds and those jail beds, we were able to put them on the streets of los angeles right in front of the county board of supervisors building. Those are the decisionmakers. They could to say whether that jail gets built or not amy how many bubebeds d youou bring g the street . We build 100 replica jail beds. Wewe werto t the stuoo who ought they were ining it for a lmlm shoota a hollood film shsht. We broke the news mo we bere heuilt those jail beds actulyly for prorotest we hed all fmerly incarcered pple to wk on e jail bs. We ended up finding out the person that was lead on building the bedsds had actually had d hs own runin with law enforcement, so it was incredibly meaningful for him to build those beds. We put them out on the street. We held up traffic for eight hours. We talked about the Mental Health crisis in Los Angeles County, but also that los angeles is a microcosm of what is happeni around the couny. Y. Y what is so powerful about th f film bedlam is we ar watcngng peopleo to the cris in realime. Your yoet monte, other, tagree to t lming . I dnt. We wenenthrough lot we had a lot conveveationsns asome dinner th ken int. En iirst ask him abo it sai this isotally up to you. U can do it, you dt ve to do it. It is upo you. Heaid, no, dont want tdo it i caed ken and sai i dont nt heoesnt want to do. Sd, no prlem. Ca me if hwants to. My broer went to the mspitalnd calle at thapoint, h isoing to be procing theilm withen. Said, you knothat g that is produng the filforbo . Want to ta to mosof u us d come ok. I said, why . He sd, im intereed in dog thfilm. Whe you chge your nd . He sd there lot ofhings that areappeningn here a peop need tonow abou it. This is in the middle e of the episisode. I think it is important for people to know even when people are in the middle of a manic episode, they can still make decisions. Said, myken and brother wants to talk to you. Ken called monte and they talked. He, back and said, your brother wants to be part of the film. I said, ok, great. That happened a couple of times that he would tell me he did not would you be part of it t and tn he wanted to be part of it. Goally he said, him and ken their own relationship and that was really important. Ken is building a relationship with his subjects, talking all the time, not just calling when he is going to film, he is asking how my brother is doing and my mom is doing. At this point we have known each other for seven years. Somee with each other and of the most intense crises. ,nd for folks dylan amy ken you are a psychiatrist. And he has had his own loved one go through similar crisis. In some ways, i dont know if i could have done this film with anybody else. I dont know if i family could have done this film with anybody else. Sensitive. Is so amy did it change her mother vevehement to illnlness and wilg to be public about it . Absolutely. My mom is a very private person. She did not want to be on camera at first. She decided she wanted to be on camera because she said, patrisse, you always do everything for us. S. I will go o on camera and talk about monte. You saw her in a couple of scenes. That took a lot for my mother to do that. Amy that is Patrisse Cullors, cofounder of the black lives Matter Movement and one of the people featured in the ,umentary bedlam which will air this on pbs april independent lens. I spoke with her and the films director, psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg at the Sundance Film Festival. Since then, the campaign to stop Los Angeles County from building a new jail at the expense of medical treatment and social services has been successful. Inin fact, on thursdsday, the s Angeles Times ran an editorial headlined 2019 was the year l. A. County finally said no to new jails. It describes how a Planning Group is now working with the supervisors on proposals for alternatives to incarceration and includes attorneys, activists, and people who are formerly incarcerated. The l. A. Times writes as the proposals come before the board, the coming year will test whether the countys historic shift from incarceration to a system based on care Mental Health care, medical care, reentry services, housing, peer support is achievable and affordable, and whether it can prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and repair broken communities. We will be back with patrisse Ken Rosenberg, director of bedlam after this. [music break] amy this is democracy now , im amy goodman. Howontinue to look at prisons and jails have become americas new asylums. This is the focus of an incredible documentary released this year called bedlam. Earlier this year, i interviewed director and psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg and also one of the people he features in the film Patrisse Cullors. , as we concluded our interview, i asked him about one of the strongest lessons of the film early intervention. But first, i asked Ken Rosenberg to tell the story of the woman johannah, one of the people in the film who suffers both from mentntal illnessss and relies fr help on the kindness of strangers, including the film folks who wese film, even todd who attacks his doctor, i mean, when you get to know them, you realize theyre good, kind, loving people who have bad illnesses. I think it really puts a human face on this illness. But johannah is among those. She comes in and she is manic, which reaches a limited mood, racing thoughts, dodoes not slep for days. His psychotic, somewhat detached from reality. Comes into the er in this state, rapidfire talk, flight of ideas. Gets put to sleep, which is essentially what happens in the er in which people are given a cocktail which consists of a sedating medication and antipsychotic drug and maybe an antihistamine. With that, they are put to sleep and transfer to another hospital in some cases, sent back home. Where in some cases, stay in the er for days, potentially weeks, looking for a a bed. Her through follow her life and she goes in and out of 10 hospitals. We see her at home. Her dad isis not able to be at home with her. As a result, her home is in shambles. We actually take her my her toess camera crew take the er. I am on the phone from my office at the time. She is saying, ken, take me back to the hospital. Wonderful camera crew says, where the hell we take her . The only place you will go is 50 miles from her home, the only place shee feels she can get soe help. We follow her and she ends the film with a areat sensese of recognition that she has a terrible illness, that the illness is not caused by the medicines, but our brain function thahat she now has to address. Now the medicines are not very problematic, they put sometimes hundreds of pounds on people. They have many side effects. This is a big concern of mine because treatment and research is nowhere near where it should be. Cant say that enough. Johannah suffers from these side effects, including weight gagai. But she also demonstrarates the kindness, humanity that all the people in the film demonstrate. Family members and patients alike. Amy talk about the role of the pharmaceutical industry and funding and researching treating serious Mental Illness. When the federal government doesnt do it and private industry does. What did Tennessee Williams say . We rely on the kindness of strangers. That is where we arare at. We rely on the kindness of strangers. We cowered in the owners, pretty much as family members. Patitients are too confused by e disease. Part of the illnlness is denial. It means you dont know you are sick. With all of this, the pharmaceutical Companies Make drugs which make profit. And i cant say i blame them. I cant say i applaud them, either. But it is an industry. Theyre out to make profit. They have shareholders who are investing money and what their profits to be seen. However, that is all we rely on. We dont have people marching the streets until, thankfully, people like patrisse who say, no, we need more. Were not going to rely just on the kindness of strangers. We are going to demand more like people with hiv did, people with breast c cancer did come and say we must have proper research, proper treatment. We have the same molecules, essentially, that we use for treatment that w were invented 0 years ago. 70 years ago we developed lithium and haldol. That is what we are using today. That i is just not rightht. We cant let the pharmaceutical companies create drugs that are metoof what we call drugs. They takake the same molecules, reinvigorate them, take away the side effects, make them a little bit better but recycle the meds until they get off patent. And when they get off patent, the Pharmaceutical Company say, these are not so gogood. We have a new drug that is really good. Amy nice i get off patent, that means generics can be made and the industry is losing they are not making a profit. I cant blame emem. The pharmaceutical industries do a lot of good, b but is that wht we rely on . That is not right. Amy one of the strongest lessons of the film, punitive policy, the president just real complex and incarceration and how it relatates to Mental Illness, but also early intervention. Patrisse, what would you say to people about how to detect this and loved ones and what you do . I think there arere two thins i think abouthehen i thinink abt having a loved one with severe Mental Illness. One is family members being educated and educating others about the early signs. Like i said, my brother had early signs of Mental Health issues. We had no idea what they were. Amy what were the early signs . Severe mood swings, really i nowws, depression, what know as anxiety. I remember one time my brother sort of locked himself in the bathroom for hours. He was maybe 16 years old and i was s 13. I said, monte, what is wrong . He could not stop crying. He finally open the door and said, i dont know what is wrong. We did not know. We had no clue. Those early signs, you can get help. You can go to a clinic and sierra therapist, see a psychiatrist. But the other thing is we have to be advocates. Not just for own family members, but we have to change what is happening right now. We are living in a moment where policymakers, elected officials are completely divested from supporting people with severe Mental Illness. It is easy to ignore them. It is easy to ignore the families. Illness toa hard respond to and relate to that i thinink people dont want to del with it all stop they dont want to deal with it. Istrongly believe that now the time to organize and advocate to change lives and change the way our institutions are dealing with our loved ones. Theres something called an exclusion which is a law on the federal books in which the feds do not reinvest medicaid funds reimburse medicaid funds for those who cannot afford insurance. If they are in a psychiatric facility with more than 16 beds. If youre building a hospital, a psychiatric hospital, 16 beds is your limit. Of course we could build a gel with 2000 were 4000 beds but you cannot build a psychiatric facility with more than 16 beds and get federal money. Amy how can that be . This isthe wayay developed in the johnson era, probably for good reasons. They wanted to just incentivize big institutions. They wanted to incentivize community Mental Health. They did not want to warehouse people and big hospitals. But it doesnt make sense in 2019, does it . Amy thats filmmaker and psychiatrist Ken Rosenberg, director of the documentary bedlam, author of a book by the same name. Patrisse cullors, cofounder of black lives matter. The film will air on pbs independent lens earlier this april. Patrisse cullors told us about two months ago her brother monte stopped taking his medication, and was living on the streets. He was released from Sherman Oaks Hospital after being involuntarily detained by the psychiatric emergency team. She then found him at the Los Angeles Downtown metro jail and bailed him out, and he has been in the hospital since then. With the help of the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health and her staunch organizing efforts, patrisse is currently in the process of getting conservatorship of her brother. And that does it for our broadcast. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] this is al jazeera. Anchor hello. Im julie macdonald. This is the newshour coming up in the next 60 minutes, u. N. Warns of disaster as a quarter of a million syrians escape fighting in the last rebel held spot. Protests in libya against a war load, forces a strike to target the two easy and border tuni sian border. A family grieves for those killed during the