On November 4, voters in Harris County will elect a new district attorney. In an article that appeared in the Houston Chronicle ("Race for DA puts justice system on trial," October 12, 2008), candidates C.O. Bradford and Pat Lykos expressed interest in reform, with a particular emphasis on addressing the needs of inmates with mental illness. Here are excerpts:
"Harris County voters looking for a district attorney candidate with a 'tough on crime' theme are out of luck this fall.
The situation is a startling departure from the law-and-order tone set for the last 30 years by Republican former district attorneys John B. Holmes Jr. and Chuck Rosenthal.
But Rosenthal resigned in disgrace early this year, opening the door for Democratic candidate C.O. Bradford and Republican candidate Pat Lykos, former police officers who have never prosecuted a criminal case, to put the local justice system on trial instead.
Bradford, the former Houston police chief, and Lykos, a former felony court judge, make sure to mention, in a county known nationwide for its frequent use of the death penalty, that the worst criminal offenders should be prosecuted to the hilt. But, despite substantive differences between the contenders, they both put greater emphasis on reforming the system so that many minor offenders get drug or mental illness treatment rather than a cell in the already crowded jail.
'Simply locking everybody up for everything isn't going to get us out of the process we are in now,' Bradford said. 'Our taxes are high, the jails are full and crime continues to go up. So let's exercise good stewardship of fiscal resources, reduce crime and understand that most people who commit offenses are salvageable, they can be rehabilitated, but they must be given realistic opportunities to reintegrate back into our society.
'That's not occurring and there are a number of reasons for that ... There are a lot of people who make a lot of money, billions of dollars, designing, building, constructing (prisons) and there's not a concern about whether you are guilty or innocent. They get paid to keep a warm body there. That's not justice.'
Lykos called this 'a critical period in our county. We have a tarnished law enforcement system. It is bad for justice, it is bad for public safety and it's bad for business. I pledge to you to restore public trust and confidence in the district attorney's office.'" ...
The article reports that "As chief, Bradford upgraded the domestic violence unit and established a crisis intervention team for encounters with mentally ill suspects. Coincidentally Lykos, who would be the county's first female DA, aimed many of her creative sentencing approaches at healing family strife and getting treatment for mentally ill inmates."
Read the full article.
Showing posts with label jail diversion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jail diversion. Show all posts
Monday, October 20, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
More on Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston
Here's more information on the pilot program designed by Healthcare for the Homeless-Houston, which aims to provide services to those inmates with severe mental illness immediately upon their release from the Harris County Jail.
From KUHF-Houston Public Radio News:
Health Care For Former Inmates Saves Harris County Money
2 June 2008
By: Capella Tucker
The Harris County Jail system is said to have one of the best mental health programs. But those services stop once inmates are released. Too often those inmates repeat the same patterns that get them right back jail. Capella Tucker reports on a program that looks to literally walk inmates from the jail doors to clinic doors to stop the cycle of re-incarceration.
Click here to listen or read the transcript below.
"Hi, this is George Bement with Healthcare for the Homeless Houston. I've arranged a special release this morning for Rhanda Gillespy. Okay, I'll be there in about five minutes, thank you."
It's 8 o'clock Saturday morning. Bement walks four blocks to the Harris County Jail.
Rhanda Gillespie has been in and out of the Harris County jails since the mid-1990's.
She's served time for theft, delivery of controlled substances and prostitution. And Gillespy suffers from mental illness. She knows most people expect her to wind up back in jail.
"In fact one of the jailers told me, the lady I worked for, she told me, she says we'll have a job waiting for you when you get back, I said hopefully I find one with better pay."
First Gillespy has to get her feet on the ground, that includes walking back to the clinic with Bement for a doctor's appointment.
"The severely mentally ill people generally are treated in the jail and in fact the jail has a very good mental health unit, but then once they get out there's no linkage of services. Once they are out the door the Harris county sheriff's department no longer has responsibility for their care so they are basically on their own."
Every other time Gillespy has been released it's been at 12:01 a.m., which is the traditional time when inmates are freed.
"The people most unable to be productive in our society are left to fend where I certainly couldn't figure out how to get from jail and before my blood levels of my anti-psychotic are gone get that new medicine. There isn't a place to do it except for clogging the Er's."
Or winding up back in jail. Doctor David Buck founded the Healthcare for the Homeless Houston. The group hopes to make a difference for Gillespy and others like her so they won't wind up behind bars again.
In a pilot project, Buck has found that the level of recidivism drops when inmates are directly connected with services upon being released. He's been following two hundred forty-five patients for the past year.
"When we looked at a comparable group from 2004 and looked at our group, the re-arrest rates from 2004 were sixty percent. The re-arrest of this group from last year was 30 percent."
Buck says that saves Harris County money. Commissioners are expected to vote tomorrow on whether they'll fund the continuation of the program which costs about one hundred thousand dollars a year.
***
Thanks to Cherie Wyatt, with HHH for sharing this with me.
From KUHF-Houston Public Radio News:
Health Care For Former Inmates Saves Harris County Money
2 June 2008
By: Capella Tucker
The Harris County Jail system is said to have one of the best mental health programs. But those services stop once inmates are released. Too often those inmates repeat the same patterns that get them right back jail. Capella Tucker reports on a program that looks to literally walk inmates from the jail doors to clinic doors to stop the cycle of re-incarceration.
Click here to listen or read the transcript below.
"Hi, this is George Bement with Healthcare for the Homeless Houston. I've arranged a special release this morning for Rhanda Gillespy. Okay, I'll be there in about five minutes, thank you."
It's 8 o'clock Saturday morning. Bement walks four blocks to the Harris County Jail.
Rhanda Gillespie has been in and out of the Harris County jails since the mid-1990's.
She's served time for theft, delivery of controlled substances and prostitution. And Gillespy suffers from mental illness. She knows most people expect her to wind up back in jail.
"In fact one of the jailers told me, the lady I worked for, she told me, she says we'll have a job waiting for you when you get back, I said hopefully I find one with better pay."
First Gillespy has to get her feet on the ground, that includes walking back to the clinic with Bement for a doctor's appointment.
"The severely mentally ill people generally are treated in the jail and in fact the jail has a very good mental health unit, but then once they get out there's no linkage of services. Once they are out the door the Harris county sheriff's department no longer has responsibility for their care so they are basically on their own."
Every other time Gillespy has been released it's been at 12:01 a.m., which is the traditional time when inmates are freed.
"The people most unable to be productive in our society are left to fend where I certainly couldn't figure out how to get from jail and before my blood levels of my anti-psychotic are gone get that new medicine. There isn't a place to do it except for clogging the Er's."
Or winding up back in jail. Doctor David Buck founded the Healthcare for the Homeless Houston. The group hopes to make a difference for Gillespy and others like her so they won't wind up behind bars again.
In a pilot project, Buck has found that the level of recidivism drops when inmates are directly connected with services upon being released. He's been following two hundred forty-five patients for the past year.
"When we looked at a comparable group from 2004 and looked at our group, the re-arrest rates from 2004 were sixty percent. The re-arrest of this group from last year was 30 percent."
Buck says that saves Harris County money. Commissioners are expected to vote tomorrow on whether they'll fund the continuation of the program which costs about one hundred thousand dollars a year.
***
Thanks to Cherie Wyatt, with HHH for sharing this with me.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Addressing Texas' Overpopulated Prisons
Last week at a statewide symposium organized by the Bexar County Commissioner, policymakers and criminal justice experts discussed ideas for addressing Texas' overpopulated prisons (Texas has the second largest-prison population in the country). Several panelists expressed concern about the increased criminalization of non-violent offenders with mental illness, which has resulted in severe overcrowding at local jails. The Bexar County Jail, for example, is 96% full.
Here are excerpts from an article that appeared in the San Antonio Express-News ("Suggestions given for overflowing prisons," February 11, 2008):
"Having reached a critical mass in its prison and jail populations, Texas needs to work harder to divert substance abusers and mentally ill inmates from the system, better equip the wave of those who are released each year and implement alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders, a group of policymakers and criminal justice experts said Thursday.
Although the state's prison and jail systems have long complained of overcrowding, the situation has become dire, as there are not enough prisons or jails to house those who are arrested every day. And even if there were, experts said, the systems are woefully understaffed for the volume. ..."
and
"In Bexar County, about 25 percent of the jail's population is mentally ill, said Leon Evans, president of the San Antonio-based Center for Health Care Services, a non-profit partnership with University Hospital that tries to divert mentally ill people before they get arrested. The program has been showcased as a model for other counties and states. Evans estimated the group screens about 500 mentally ill people a month who would otherwise have ended up in jail or in emergency rooms because police officers don't know where to take them.
"There's a growing realization that we have a system of incarceration that mainly deals with the mentally ill or with drug offenders," said Tony Fabelo, the symposium's keynote speaker and director of research for the Council of State Government's Justice Center.
Fabelo said incarceration is such a common experience for some people that it's not regarded as a deterrent to committing crime. In Texas, he said, the growth of the prison population has outpaced that of the state: Between 1980 and 2005, the state jail population jumped 61 percent and the prison population by 310 percent. Meanwhile, the state's overall population grew 61.3 percent.
Nearly two-thirds of felons are re-arrested within three years of their release, said John Byrd, a criminal justice professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In Bexar County Jail, Adkisson said, about 81 percent of the inmates have been there before.
Policymakers and elected leaders must make it easier, under certain circumstances, for offenders to post bail, the panelists said, and use better pre-trial services to reduce the number of those awaiting trial. ..."
Read the full article.
Here are excerpts from an article that appeared in the San Antonio Express-News ("Suggestions given for overflowing prisons," February 11, 2008):
"Having reached a critical mass in its prison and jail populations, Texas needs to work harder to divert substance abusers and mentally ill inmates from the system, better equip the wave of those who are released each year and implement alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders, a group of policymakers and criminal justice experts said Thursday.
Although the state's prison and jail systems have long complained of overcrowding, the situation has become dire, as there are not enough prisons or jails to house those who are arrested every day. And even if there were, experts said, the systems are woefully understaffed for the volume. ..."
and
"In Bexar County, about 25 percent of the jail's population is mentally ill, said Leon Evans, president of the San Antonio-based Center for Health Care Services, a non-profit partnership with University Hospital that tries to divert mentally ill people before they get arrested. The program has been showcased as a model for other counties and states. Evans estimated the group screens about 500 mentally ill people a month who would otherwise have ended up in jail or in emergency rooms because police officers don't know where to take them.
"There's a growing realization that we have a system of incarceration that mainly deals with the mentally ill or with drug offenders," said Tony Fabelo, the symposium's keynote speaker and director of research for the Council of State Government's Justice Center.
Fabelo said incarceration is such a common experience for some people that it's not regarded as a deterrent to committing crime. In Texas, he said, the growth of the prison population has outpaced that of the state: Between 1980 and 2005, the state jail population jumped 61 percent and the prison population by 310 percent. Meanwhile, the state's overall population grew 61.3 percent.
Nearly two-thirds of felons are re-arrested within three years of their release, said John Byrd, a criminal justice professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. In Bexar County Jail, Adkisson said, about 81 percent of the inmates have been there before.
Policymakers and elected leaders must make it easier, under certain circumstances, for offenders to post bail, the panelists said, and use better pre-trial services to reduce the number of those awaiting trial. ..."
Read the full article.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
A Holistic Approach to Offenders with Mental Illness
Here's an op-ed from Judge Nancy Hohengarten that appeared in the Austin American-Statesman ("A way to ensure justice for all", February 5, 2008):
"Traditionally, family members of criminal defendants do not discuss cases with the prosecution, but when the defendant is mentally ill, family input is appropriate.
A family member who understands the nature of a defendant's mental illness, behavior and circumstances is a valuable resource to the criminal justice system. Protection of the community requires that the mentally ill receive treatment to prevent recidivism. A mentally ill defendant who does not receive appropriate treatment will often be re-arrested, thrown back in jail and yet another person will have been a victim. In the misdemeanor courts' mental health docket, Travis County Attorney David Escamilla allows his mental health prosecutor to listen to family members because it leads to better decision-making on criminal cases.
The role of a prosecutor, after all, is to seek justice. On a case-by-case basis, it means that the punishment should be appropriate for the offense and the offender. This, of course, requires the prosecutor to show leadership on community problems — like mentalillness — that can lead to crime.
My experience with family members trying to keep a loved one mentally healthy and out of jail is that they are exhausted, frustrated and heartbroken.
Their experience provides valuable guidance to criminal justice professionals so that the justice system appropriately addresses andmonitors mentally ill defendants.
One longtime Austin business owner whose son had damaged her property asked me to put her son on probation so that he could be ordered to take his medication. He did very well and was discharged early.
Another woman asked me to find treatment for her son because the stress was killing her. Unfortunately, her mentally ill son couldn't stop using cocaine while he waited the two months for residential treatment on probation. Now he's spending a month in jail because the wait for such treatment is shorter when you're locked up.
Family members aren't asking for leniency; rather, they want their loved ones mentally healthy so they won't break the law and end up in jail. Thus their interests coincide with the interests of criminal justice.
Prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys need to listen to these families. It is our responsibility to provide protection for thecommunity and fairness and justice for all."
Hohengarten presides over Travis County Court at Law 5. She is a member of the Mayor's Mental Health Task Force Monitoring Committeeand the Austin Travis County Mental Health Jail Diversion Committee.
Read the editorial online.
"Traditionally, family members of criminal defendants do not discuss cases with the prosecution, but when the defendant is mentally ill, family input is appropriate.
A family member who understands the nature of a defendant's mental illness, behavior and circumstances is a valuable resource to the criminal justice system. Protection of the community requires that the mentally ill receive treatment to prevent recidivism. A mentally ill defendant who does not receive appropriate treatment will often be re-arrested, thrown back in jail and yet another person will have been a victim. In the misdemeanor courts' mental health docket, Travis County Attorney David Escamilla allows his mental health prosecutor to listen to family members because it leads to better decision-making on criminal cases.
The role of a prosecutor, after all, is to seek justice. On a case-by-case basis, it means that the punishment should be appropriate for the offense and the offender. This, of course, requires the prosecutor to show leadership on community problems — like mentalillness — that can lead to crime.
My experience with family members trying to keep a loved one mentally healthy and out of jail is that they are exhausted, frustrated and heartbroken.
Their experience provides valuable guidance to criminal justice professionals so that the justice system appropriately addresses andmonitors mentally ill defendants.
One longtime Austin business owner whose son had damaged her property asked me to put her son on probation so that he could be ordered to take his medication. He did very well and was discharged early.
Another woman asked me to find treatment for her son because the stress was killing her. Unfortunately, her mentally ill son couldn't stop using cocaine while he waited the two months for residential treatment on probation. Now he's spending a month in jail because the wait for such treatment is shorter when you're locked up.
Family members aren't asking for leniency; rather, they want their loved ones mentally healthy so they won't break the law and end up in jail. Thus their interests coincide with the interests of criminal justice.
Prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys need to listen to these families. It is our responsibility to provide protection for thecommunity and fairness and justice for all."
Hohengarten presides over Travis County Court at Law 5. She is a member of the Mayor's Mental Health Task Force Monitoring Committeeand the Austin Travis County Mental Health Jail Diversion Committee.
Read the editorial online.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Texas Chief Justice Task Force Sets Goals for 2008
Here's another item that appeared in the January 2008 newsletter of the Consensus Project:
"The Texas Chief Justice Task Force, led by the Honorable Sharon Keller, Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, has set forth a series of goals for 2008 that will build on successes in the past year and improve outcomes for people with mental illnesses involved with the criminal justice system.
In 2007, the task force helped to bring about legislation that facilitated information-sharing among criminal justice and mental health agencies. The task force designed a system to identify in the Department of Public Safety records individuals who are also listed in the state mental health service database (Department of State Health Services; DSHS). Judge Keller and key task force members presented the system to the 80th Texas Legislature, and these recommendations and related funding were adopted in May 2007 (SB 839 by Senator Duncan, a member of the task force). The new information-sharing mechanism, which permits authorized jail personnel to gather additional information on individuals flagged as having prior contact with the public mental health system, is expected to be operational by September 2008.
Judge Keller’s task force now plans to recommend changes to the state’s reporting and jail intake processes. The goal is to identify as quickly as possible people arrested who have a mental health diagnosis or history of treatment and to transmit this information in a uniform manner to court officials while respecting individuals' privacy rights. These efforts will be coordinated with the new $82 million program for jail diversion run by the Department of State Health Services, another product of last year’s legislative session. This program will fund mobile response teams and a hotline that will provide mental health interventions for people identified at intake as potentially having mental illnesses.
Over the next year, the task force hopes to accomplish the following: recommend changes to the statewide jail intake form to add a new flagging mechanism to indicate potential mental illness; examine the legal changes necessary for court magistrates within 24 hours of arrest to order the completion of a uniform mental health report form; design and pilot this form; and recommend that legislation be enacted that makes it a requirement in Texas. The task force hopes that enhancing procedures to identify early at jail intake people who might need mental health treatment will ensure that jail personnel make use of the new diversion program and are able to determine which individuals need mental health interventions as early as possible.
Together, all of these advances will help to improve the process through which people with mental illnesses entering the criminal justice system are identified and connected to treatment services in Texas. The task force’s work has been made possible through the Chief Justices’ Criminal Justice/Mental Health Leadership Initiative, which is coordinated by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and GAINS Center and supported by the JEHT Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation."
"The Texas Chief Justice Task Force, led by the Honorable Sharon Keller, Presiding Judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, has set forth a series of goals for 2008 that will build on successes in the past year and improve outcomes for people with mental illnesses involved with the criminal justice system.
In 2007, the task force helped to bring about legislation that facilitated information-sharing among criminal justice and mental health agencies. The task force designed a system to identify in the Department of Public Safety records individuals who are also listed in the state mental health service database (Department of State Health Services; DSHS). Judge Keller and key task force members presented the system to the 80th Texas Legislature, and these recommendations and related funding were adopted in May 2007 (SB 839 by Senator Duncan, a member of the task force). The new information-sharing mechanism, which permits authorized jail personnel to gather additional information on individuals flagged as having prior contact with the public mental health system, is expected to be operational by September 2008.
Judge Keller’s task force now plans to recommend changes to the state’s reporting and jail intake processes. The goal is to identify as quickly as possible people arrested who have a mental health diagnosis or history of treatment and to transmit this information in a uniform manner to court officials while respecting individuals' privacy rights. These efforts will be coordinated with the new $82 million program for jail diversion run by the Department of State Health Services, another product of last year’s legislative session. This program will fund mobile response teams and a hotline that will provide mental health interventions for people identified at intake as potentially having mental illnesses.
Over the next year, the task force hopes to accomplish the following: recommend changes to the statewide jail intake form to add a new flagging mechanism to indicate potential mental illness; examine the legal changes necessary for court magistrates within 24 hours of arrest to order the completion of a uniform mental health report form; design and pilot this form; and recommend that legislation be enacted that makes it a requirement in Texas. The task force hopes that enhancing procedures to identify early at jail intake people who might need mental health treatment will ensure that jail personnel make use of the new diversion program and are able to determine which individuals need mental health interventions as early as possible.
Together, all of these advances will help to improve the process through which people with mental illnesses entering the criminal justice system are identified and connected to treatment services in Texas. The task force’s work has been made possible through the Chief Justices’ Criminal Justice/Mental Health Leadership Initiative, which is coordinated by the Council of State Governments Justice Center and GAINS Center and supported by the JEHT Foundation and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation."
Monday, January 7, 2008
Jail Diversion Program in Dallas County
Here's an article that appeared last month in the Dallas Morning News (December 19, 2007), which focuses on Dallas County's jail diversion program for offenders with mental illness:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/DN-floyd_19met.ART.State.Edition1.36b9744.html
The article presents several success stories of the program, which provides those who have committed misdemeanor offenses with an opportunity to participate in an intensive, closely-supervised mental health treatment program instead of being sent to prison. "Case managers make sure they stay on their medications and off drugs and alcohol. They must attend counseling sessions, stay out of trouble, prove they're keeping doctor appointments. They have to find housing and jobs – many are homeless when they start the program – and submit to drug testing," according to DMN columnist Jacquielynn Floyd.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/localnews/columnists/jfloyd/stories/DN-floyd_19met.ART.State.Edition1.36b9744.html
The article presents several success stories of the program, which provides those who have committed misdemeanor offenses with an opportunity to participate in an intensive, closely-supervised mental health treatment program instead of being sent to prison. "Case managers make sure they stay on their medications and off drugs and alcohol. They must attend counseling sessions, stay out of trouble, prove they're keeping doctor appointments. They have to find housing and jobs – many are homeless when they start the program – and submit to drug testing," according to DMN columnist Jacquielynn Floyd.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)