I'm apparently not the only one concerned with the mental healthcare (or lack thereof) in the criminal justice system.
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I was somewhat encouraged this week with regard to our new judge and competency cases. I had my 3 "dangerousness" hearings on Thursday, to which I referred previously. She actually agreed to dismiss two of the cases, as the State conceded that the clients did not meet the definition of "dangerous" in the statute, and the third she sent to the state mental hospital to treat to competence. I was surprised that she agreed to actually dismiss the cases, rather than wanting the State to dismiss them. I was hoping she would dismiss the third case, since the client had already been to the mental hospital on this case, and upon return to jail refused her meds and became incompetent again. But, at least, she's out of jail for a while. And who knows, maybe this time she will actually stay on her meds.
The really good development occurred after the hearings, when the judge asked the Deputy DA, me, and the court administrator back to her chambers. She wanted to discuss setting up a mental health court, and it seems that she really wants to go through with it. As I said in the post linked above, my only reservation with this is that we don't have a lot of services in this community for the mentally ill, and without adequate services, I don't see how a mental health court would work. But both the court administrator and the Deputy DA agreed with me that services in the community were required for this to work. So, I feel better about this now. The administrator is going to get us some procedures manuals from other mental health courts in the state in the next couple of weeks so that we can see how theirs work. He also wants to schedule a field trip to a mental health court sometime in January to see what it looks like. In the meanwhile, he's going to explore funding sources.
My boss even said I could represent our office in whatever committee gets formed to implement this. It is exciting to be able to help address a problem that the justice system is unable to adequately cope with, but that affects the justice system and those involved in it on a daily basis. I invite anyone to comment with ideas of what works or doesn't work.
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6 comments:
Wow, it sure seems like your voice is being heard! Those developments sound most auspicious--I hope they pan out.
Wow, that is so great!
"I'm apparently not the only one concerned with the mental healthcare (or lack thereof) in the criminal justice system."
How incredibly arrogant to think you might be the only one concerned with mental health and the criminal justice system.
Anonymous,
Thank you for reading. If you read more carefully, and follow the links, you will discover that I never said I was the only one concerned with this issue. In fact, I have linked several other blogs in several other recent posts on this issue.
Good work! Sounds like the ball is actually rolling on this one. It also sounds like this court administrator is an ally who can help make things happen -- someone you hope stays around for a while? Anyway, I hope you can push this through to a successful conclusion. Bravo for an auspicious start!
Ruth -- we have a mental health diversion program here. If you're interested, send me email through my profile link.
As for Anonymous -- "arrogant" is an awfully agressive term. I think we P.D.'s often feel like we're alone on this issue. We would prefer to get people help if we can, preferably on the prevention side, but it is pretty clear that the decision has been made to allocate resources to the criminal justice system. Why else would the world' largest mental health treatment facility be located in the L.A. County Jail? So, Ruth wasn't speaking from arrogance, just an underlying frustration.
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