Mental health courts make more sense for mentally ill

If Ohio Supreme Court Justice Evelyn Lundberg Stratton is successful, the mentally ill in Ohio who come up against the criminal justice system will first be diverted to mental health courts and a chance to live useful, productive lives. The closure or downsizing of state psychiatric hospitals has left many people with severe mental illnesses on the streets or in the nation's jails or prisons -- where they are rarely able to get the services and care they need. With the success of pilot mental health courts -- established under legislation authored by U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, and Rep. Ted Strickland, D-6th -- it's time for Ohio's courts, including those in Mahoning, Trumbull and Columbiana counties, to join with Justice Stratton in developing alternatives to the revolving door through which many of the state's mentally ill repeatedly travel.
Mentally ill persons are more likely to be homeless, less likely to get needed treatment, more likely to receive longer jail sentences and are less likely to be paroled.
Vicious cycle: Then when they are released, many inmates will leave jail or prison without getting needed treatment while confined. They will re-enter society with a higher probability of repeating law violation and being resentenced to additional jail or prison time. And without needed treatment during confinement and/or having a treatment program in place immediately on release from jail or prison, the cycle will often continue between incarceration and breaking the law.
In fact, according to March 2000 statistics from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, there were 6,393 mentally ill inmates, 3,051 of whom were classified as severely mentally disabled. After Akron Municipal Court instituted the first mental health court in Ohio in January 2001 of 486 incidents, most offenders were diverted to a mental health facility or social worker. Only 29 went into court.
Mental health courts are not only a more effective way to deal those whose mental illness pushes them up against the law, but it also costs far less to deal with the mentally ill in that way than through the criminal justice system. Currently, taxpayer dollars pay for police officers to repeatedly arrest, transport and process mentally ill defendants, jail costs associated with treatment and crisis intervention, salaries of judges and court staff, prosecutors and defense attorneys, as well as other hidden costs.
As Justice Stratton asked in a meeting with The Vindicator Editorial Board earlier this week, "The question becomes would we rather spend these dollars to keep mentally ill citizens homeless, revolving in and out of our criminal justice system, or would we rather spend these dollars to help them to become stable productive citizens?" We believe the answer has to be care rather than criminalization.