Mental health courts expand to N. Georgia

North Georgia defendants with mental illnesses will have an alternative to incarceration later this year.

Judges for the Conasauga Judicial Circuit and Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit announced this week they received state funding to launch mental health courts. These courts aim to help people manage their illnesses and avoid prison time.

The Conasauga circuit, which covers Whitfield and Murray counties, received a $159,000 grant this year, Judge Scott Minter said. The Lookout Mountain circuit, meanwhile, received a $154,000 grant. That circuit covers Catoosa, Chattooga, Dade and Walker counties.

Beginning this fall, employees of the mental health courts will receive suggestions on defendants who would be good fits for the program. Those suggestions can come from police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys or family members.

If the team running the mental health court thinks a defendant is a good fit, they will be accepted in the program.

In the early stages of the program, the defendants will attend counseling, visit with doctors and take multiple drug tests every week. Employees of the program will try to make sure the defendants stay clean of illegal drugs and take the prescribed medications for their illnesses. The defendants will also report to the judge overseeing the program once a week.

The judge has the power to put the defendants in jail for violating the terms of the program, though overall the aim is to help rehabilitate the inmate. Minter estimates defendants will stay in his program for about two years. Judge Kristina Cook Graham, who will oversee the program in the Lookout Mountain circuit, thinks hers will last 18-24 months, depending on the defendant.

Both judges hope to launch their courts in September.

“These accountability court programs are effective in reducing recidivism in defendants who have mental health and drug abuse issues,” Minter said in an email. “This is a benefit to the community (less crime), the state (less costs of incarceration), and of course to the defendants.”

Most of the state funding will pay for coordinators who will oversee the programs in both circuits, as well as contracts with counselors, drug screeners and probation officers specially assigned to the defendants involved. The courts also need money to train the employees and buy supplies such as ankle monitors for the defendants.

Minter and Graham both estimate their courts will oversee about 20-25 defendants in the first year, though Graham hopes the court will receive more state funding in future years, allowing them to accept more applicants. The money could add more probation officers, counselors and drug tests. Ultimately, Graham hopes the court will have about 50 defendants at a given time.

She would also like to see enough money that they could make sure each defendant has a safe place to live.

“Hopefully, if we do a good job,” she said, “we’ll have additional funds that we can use for housing.”

Graham said she visited the National Association of Drug Court Professionals in Houston and attended an Accountability Court Judges of Georgia committee meeting this year to prepare for the new job. She admitted she does not have a thorough background on mental health problems but believes she has studied the issue enough to effectively run the court.

The intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system is well known. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ 2011-12 National Inmate study, which polled 106,000 inmates across the nation, about 14.5 percent of prisoners met the threshold of serious psychological distress. About 26.4 percent of jail inmates met the same threshold.

By comparison, 5 percent of the country’s general population meets that threshold.

To address the problem and try to reduce prison and jail populations, courts across the country have created a special subsection for defendants with mental illnesses. In 1997, there were four mental health courts across the country. Now, according to the Council of State Governments’ justice center, there are more than 300.

Janeen Buck Willison, a senior research fellow at the Urban Institute who studied mental health courts in the Bronx and Brooklyn, said participants who went through the process were about 6 percent less likely to get arrested again, compared to a similar group that didn’t go to mental health court.

Stakeholders in the area said there were a couple of keys to success. First, the team that runs the court — from the coordinator to the judge — needs to work together for several years to understand best practices. Also, she said, the programs work because defendants get necessary treatment faster than they would without help from the court.

“They deliver services that folks need,” she said. “They have that support.”

Locally, Graham said she has watched courts in Rome, Georgia, and Gainesville, Georgia, operate. Asked how she would measure whether her program will be successful, she said, “ask me in a year.”

“From what I’m seeing, these people are doing much, much better,” Graham said. “I see people who are living a reasonably normal life. They have jobs. They’re not in jail. They’re not on substances. They’re not on the streets. I think that’s a good thing.”

Accountability courts such as these have been a priority of Gov. Nathan Deal’s since he took office. Deal, a former judge, argued these specialty courts can decrease the prison population and help people get back on their feet. With his backing, the Legislature has offered more money to local judicial circuits to build their courts.

In fiscal year 2013, the state government set aside about $10.9 million for accountability court grants. This year, the figure is up to $28.7 million.

Despite the money, the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit was one of two in the state without any accountability courts as of 2016. But by November of that year, after Senior Judge Jon “Bo” Wood retired, Graham and other criminal justice leaders in the area backed the creation of a drug court.

That court launched last October, with Judge Don Thompson in charge. While he dropped two defendants for failing to live up to the court’s obligations, Thompson said Friday that the other 20 participants are still in the program. In addition to frequent drug tests and counseling, the defendants check in with Thompson in court every week.

The number of defendants will expand this year, after the state increased funding. While the state gave the drug court a $148,000 grant last year, the funding is up $217,000 this year. Thompson hopes to have 50 participants by the end of next year. Eventually, he hopes the system operates with about 75 people.

Most of the money is needed to pay for drug tests and probation officers, he said. They check in with defendants at home, making sure they are meeting their curfew.

“That’s the only way we can keep these people’s feet to the fire and make them accountable for their actions,” he said. “Especially on the front end.”