Sun Sentinel Op Ed Howard Finkelstein: Fund treatment for mentally ill before jail June 12, 2014 | By Howard Finkelstein Armed with a scathing grand jury report, I pushed, along with other mental health advocates, for the countrys first mental health court. Our court was copied by justice systems around the country and the world. Its success led to expansion to felony cases. But the felony court has lost its way. Overcome by numbers and process, it has lost sight of the individual. The court was created to ensure community treatment for mentally-ill, intellectually disabled and autistic defendants. It was intended to stop the revolving door between the jail and mental illness. But felony mental health court has simply streamlined the incarceration of the disabled. The very existence of the court has justified the arrest of mentally-ill and intellectually disabled people. Instead of a place to get help, police and prosecutors have used the court as a tool for fighting crime. By making it easier to handle these individuals in the criminal justice system, we have established the criminal justice system as the primary source of mental health treatment in his county. The court simply moves these defendants through the criminal justice system and ultimately into prison. Arrests are made, charges are filed and cases languish in court even though a defendant is incompetent to proceed and will never be competent to proceed. Rather than helping, the court has become an albatross weighing down the mentally ill. These prolonged prosecutions unnecessarily burden taxpayers with countless hours of judicial and attorney time and fruitless competency restoration services in cases that should be dismissed or should have never been filed. The creation of the court has backfired — it has effectively institutionalized mental health treatment in the criminal justice system. We need to realize that this treatment is too costly. Re-active treatment happens after a crime is committed and a mentally-disabled person has suffered and spiraled out of control. We need to keep the mentally disabled out of our jails. That is what we hoped when we began the court. But thats not what has happened. So now we need to fund treatment before people are arrested — before crimes are committed and people are victimized. Mental health court was created with the best of intentions — but the disabled have been sacrificed in the name of case counts and red tape. Its time to focus on the disabled again. The place to start is outside the jailhouse door. Howard Finkelstein is Broward Countys chief public defender. Story Link: articles.sun-sentinel/2014-06-12/news/fl-viewpoint-mental-health-court-20140612_1_health-court-mental-health-treatment-defendants
Posted on: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 13:46:10 +0000
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