LACOMBE — Too many people are being warehoused in jails and prisons instead of getting treatment for their illnesses, says the mother of a young man jailed for setting fires in the psychiatric wing of the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
Layton Wyatt, now 18, was diagnosed at the age of five with Asperger’s Syndrome — a mild form of autism.
Earlier this year, he was hospitalized with an anxiety attack suffered after his parents’ marriage broke up.
Wyatt’s mother, Candace Eberle, said her son lit two small fires in his hospital room, one on March 3 and the second on April 24, because he hoped to get kicked out.
Instead, he was arrested in June and charged with arson.
After a series of forensic psychiatric assessments, Wyatt pleaded guilty to the charges on Sept. 17 and was sentenced on Dec. 24 to 12 months in jail, with nine months of credit for the six months he had already served in remand.
The extra credit was granted because the judge recognized that, because of his mental state, Wyatt suffered more than necessary while he was in remand, including taking a beating from a fellow inmate, said Eberle.
With three months left to serve, his earliest possible release date is Feb. 21.
He is getting no treatment or help in remand and spends his days alone in his cell, doing nothing, she said.
A clinical psychologist, spiritual healer and former corrections officer at Red Deer Remand Centre, Eberle has vowed to change the way society and the legal system treat people who suffer from mental illnesses.
“The criminal justice system has completely failed my son,” she said from her office in downtown Lacombe on Sunday.
The larger crime is that Wyatt is just one of many mentally compromised adults who languish in jail because society does not know what else to do with them, she said.
Sitting in a jail cell is not going to teach Wyatt anything, because he is highly impulsive and does not have the ability to form criminal intent, said Eberle.
While putting him in jail will protect society for a short period of time, the punishment of a jail sentence missing the mark and could set him back, she said.
Although Eberle is adamant that jail is the wrong place for people like her son, she has found any alternatives.
Eberle said she has been looking at work done by the National Alliance on Mental Illness and hopes to become involved in brainstorming with other people who share her concerns.
“There is still a huge stigma to (mental illness) and there is so much judgment,” she said.
“He has a biological disorder. When someone who is paralyzed and you tell them to get up and walk and they don’t, do you punish them for it? As far as I’m concerned, it’s exactly the same.
“We need to transform the system for people like my son.”
She asks that anyone interested in joining the discussion get in touch with her at 403-872-7747.
bkossowan@www.reddeeradvocate.com