Experts will discuss how cognitive behavioral therapy and trauma-informed care could reshape rehabilitation.

A nonprofit led by former Gov. Jim McGreevey will convene experts, policymakers, and criminal justice survivors in Jersey City next month to examine untreated trauma’s long-term effects on the human brain.

The daylong conference, scheduled for April 2 and organized by the New Jersey Reentry Corporation, will also explore how trauma-informed rehabilitation strategies such as cognitive behavioral therapy can boost long-term outcomes in the justice system.

“In many cases, the proximate cause of someone’s behavior is not addressed, and many would argue it’s worsened by incarceration,” McGreevey told The Jersey Vindicator. “If you don’t address from the neck up, that pattern of behavior has a high probability of repeating itself.”

The event comes amid a dramatic rise in mental illness among incarcerated populations, the former governor said. When McGreevey began his career as a young prosecutor nearly three decades ago, about 15% of county jail inmates suffered from mental health issues. Now, that number is closer to 65%.

The criminal justice system does those people no favors by judging only guilt or innocence, not what psychological trauma first pushed them to stray from the path.  

That’s a missing piece of the puzzle, McGreevey said. And it’s hurting people from all walks of life, including combat veterans, longtime prisoners, and victims of domestic violence, among others.

McGreevey hopes his conference, which will include talks by luminaries such as the Harvard-trained neuroanatomist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, will help shed light on how trauma causes mental illness and impairs cognition.

“When somebody suffers trauma, the brain literally resorts to a survival mentality, fight or flight,” McGreevey said. “And that impacts your thinking, your behavior, and your judgment … which is not necessarily grounded in morality.”

“An example is the case of a person pushing someone they don’t know into harm’s way,” he continued. “They’re not necessarily a malevolently bad actor engaging in gang violence; they’re a mentally ill person who does not fully understand or comprehend their decision making.”

The nationwide closure of psychiatric hospitals in the 1960s, McGreevey said, also thrust many mentally ill people onto the streets and into jails, worsening their plight.

In 1955, about 558,000 people lived in state psychiatric hospitals, the governor added. Today, that number has sunk to 36,000.

New Jersey has seen a similar drop, going from 20,000 beds in the 1950s to just 1,500 today. And few of those remain open for those who desperately need long-term care.

“I want to be clear, I’m not advocating for [a return to institutions], although we do need more psychiatric hospitals,” McGreevey said. “But the point is that it’s far easier to place someone in a county jail or state prison than into psychiatric care.”

And simply punishing offenders for acts they might not be able to control without treating their mental illness is a missed opportunity, he added.

At the conference, which will be held at St. Peter’s University, Dr. Taylor will speak on how brain injuries and trauma alter perception, impulse control, and reasoning, McGreevey said.

She’ll be joined by Petros Levounis, former president of the American Psychiatric Association, and Elie Aoun, a four-board-certified psychiatrist from Columbia University.

Together, they’ll parse through evidence-based interventions, such as cognitive behavioral and trauma-informed therapies, which might help rebuild patients’ neurological regulation and decision-making skills.

McGreevey compared the crusade to early attempts to help those suffering from addiction, whom the legal system treated harshly for decades before finally conceding that rehabilitation worked better than punishment.

“The same challenge exists today for mental health,” he said. “And if you don’t work from the neck up, the decisions they make in survival mode are going to be repeated.”

For more information about the conference, visit njreentry.org.