Judge says mental health court needed
The $42 million detention center may be the linchpin of criminal justice in Garland County, but for many, it’s a way station along the well-worn path of recidivism.
It’s also palliative, for offenders and the communities from which they have been removed, but its wards will eventually be loosed on society, where the same pathologies and circumstances that brought them to 3564 Albert Pike Road will lead them back.
“The research tells us that we cannot continue at the rate we’re on with incarceration,” Division 1 Garland County District Judge Meredith Switzer told a gathering of mental health providers last month. “It’s not just because we’re in a jail overcrowding crisis. We have a new jail, but we’ll eventually get there with that jail, as well.
“But that’s not the point. We’re going to have to address the underlying cause for behaviors rather than just address the behavior itself. If we don’t, it’s going to be a problem we’re not going to be able to control.”
Switzer said incorporating a mental health court into the county’s suite of specialty courts could help. With her
term concluding at the end of the year, she doesn’t have much time to get the program going, telling providers it was one of her goals when she was appointed to the bench last year.
“I want us to start having the discussion for some kind of diversion for people who really need the diversion,” she said, hoping to galvanize the mental health community into a collective similar to the coalition faith-based and secular groups in the county’s drug and DWI courts’ alternative sentencing programs are trying to form. “I see people who have severe mental illness to the extent that they’re unable to aid in their own defense.
“But generally we have people who have an underlying behavioral issue that can be addressed, pretty simply, I think.”
Psychiatric care should be part of the 360-degree approach Switzer said is needed, facilitating sentence alternatives that rehabilitate rather than just warehouse offenders.
“If we’re going to divert people from court and incarceration, we have to have a holistic approach that treats mental health, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness and lack of education and employment,” she said. “When they finish their time in incarceration, they need employment, education, a place to live. All those things need to be in place. That will be our only recipe for success.”
Division 2 District Judge Ralph Ohm told providers too many defendants list the same set of circumstances on their applications for a court-appointed attorney: no employment, no income and no address.
“That tells me we have a problem,” he said. “So consequently, what do we do with them? We put them in jail where they at least get three hots and a cot, and they’re out of the way and not bothering other folks. But eventually, we have to let that person go.
“Garland County is a great place to live, but there is a subculture out there that a lot of us never see. It involves drugs and alcohol and mental health issues, so we want to pull as many people out of that mess as we can.”