By C1 Staff
FAIRFAX COUNTY, Wash. — A woman who spent some of her darkest days at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center has returned to teach staff about inmates with mental illness.
Daria Akers was incarcerated at the facility in 2010 after assaulting her husband with a telephone during a manic episode, reports NBC News. Akers is diagnosed bipolar.
When Akers was held at the facility, the cells for mentally unstable inmates were small and windowless where lights were left on day and night.
“I truly believe female receiving is torture,” she said of the experience. “Lights are on 24 hours a day … the noise is maddening, people screaming and yelling constantly.”
After an attempt to commit suicide, Akers was transferred to Western State Hospital. Her psychosis broke a month later, and she eventually fully recovered.
Using her story, Akers now teaches Crisis Intervention Training classes to officers in Fairfax County. The program is intended to help law enforcement better handle offenders with mental health issues.
Kendall Jones, a Fairfax County patrol officer, said he often encounters people in his district dealing with mental health challenges.
“So I know when I approach the individual it’s not necessarily because they are voluntarily committing a crime, it’s because of something they can’t control,” he said. “To be able to reflect back in this training, to reflect back on [Akers’] story, kind of helps me to understand there is a family behind it, a history behind it in most cases and that it’s involuntary at that time.”
The windowless cells that Akers stayed in during her time in lockup are no longer used for offenders with mental health issues; now, those inmates are placed in new units with windows and a day room.
Akers also serves on two commissions that both aim to assist law enforcement with mentally ill offenders. She is also serving on the newly created Diversion First task force, aimed at sending mentally ill to treatment instead of jail.