Miami county aims to help mentally ill arrestees
An alternative to jail, soon-to-open facility will treat defendants instead of incarcerating them
This could be the year Miami-Dade County makes history, opening a centre for treating and helping — instead of incarcerating — people with mental illness. It is thought to be the first of its kind in the country.
But delay upon delay upon delay — so much bureaucracy it’s hard to blame any one thing — mean that the planned Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery is slated to open some 20 years after it first was promised.
Many of those who will be helped are chronically homeless. Most have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder. Many abuse drugs or alcohol. All of them find themselves in and out of jail, at great cost to taxpayers, after being accused of committing non-violent crimes. They’re largely invisible to society, except when they cause problems.
An alternative to jail, the centre will be a place judges can send nonviolent defendants accused of misdemeanours or low-level felonies instead of locking them up. Police could take potential arrestees there instead of booking them in to the jail.
Offering the gamut of services a person might need to turn their life around, the centre represents a starkly more humane approach than the neglectful, abusive treatment federal authorities documented in Miami-Dade jails as recently as 2011.
If it opens this year, the centre will be the crowning achievement of Judge Steven Leifman’s career.
The 65-year-old Miami-Dade associate administrative judge retires from the county bench next January. Leifman has worked since his earliest days as a judge to reverse what he saw as an illogical, inhumane approach to handling arrestees with mental illness.
It’s a predicament no jurisdiction has solved, and mistakes can be deadly. On any given day in America, jails are filled with suspects with mental illness. Because of their chronic condition, they may not be safely mixed with the general jail population.
And simply cycling them in and out of jail is a waste of public money — and of human lives, Leifman said.
“No one’s getting better. They don’t get better in jail,” Leifman said. “You have a chance to break that horrible cycle. … You have a chance to help people recover.”
Some 20 years ago, Miami-Dade voters approved a $2.9 billion (U.S.) “Building Better Communities” bond program for, among many other things, the centre that still hasn’t opened.
A county list of projects said the centre would free up jail space and provide a more effective way to “house the mentally ill as they await a trial date.”
While progress stalled on the centre, the underlying practices championed by Judge Leifman have taken root since then: non-violent suspects with mental illness or substance use disorders can be diverted from jails and connected with support services in the community. A national expert in decriminalizing mental illness, Leifman travels the country sharing “the Miami model.”
But the new, 208-bed centre will offer everything under one roof. Clients will get help accessing benefits they qualify for, receive optical, dental, medical and psychiatric care, appear in the facility’s courtroom when necessary, detox from substances, quit smoking, have unfortunate tattoos removed, work with dogs in an on-site kennel, learn culinary job skills and receive help getting permanently stabilized. All in a seven-storey, renovated state building near west Wynwood that will serve an estimated 9,000 clients a year.
Though Miami-Dade is now seen as progressive in diverting some arrestees with mental illness away from jail cells, the county’s past is dark.
In 2008, conditions in MiamiDade County jails were so dismal for people with mental illness, the federal Department of Justice launched a three-year investigation.
Jail guards routinely physically abused inmates, the report said. Suicidal inmates were treated with such disregard that they did indeed die in their cells. Detainees were “routinely subject to discipline” for behaviour that was symptomatic of their illness.
In 2013, the county agreed to a slew of corrective actions, under a federal DOJ consent decree, including a renewed promise to build the mental-health facility.
Initially, there will be no savings, Leifman and Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava conceded.
To the contrary, there will be startup costs — amounts Leifman, Levine Cava and others said were still in discussion and can’t be revealed.
“We might not be saving money just yet, but we’re saving lives,” the mayor said.
She said the Miami-Dade County Commission will vote in February or March on a budget to operate the centre, and on contracts with Jackson Health System and the Advocate Program, which is now slated to operate the facility.
Whether the Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery will open its doors in 2024 is an unsettled question.
A published report in July 2019 quoted Leifman predicting an opening in 18 months. A county report in July 2020 put the project completion at June 2023. In a grant application in 2021, the county said it would be “opening in early 2022.” News coverage last year had it opening in six months.
Levine Cava now predicts an opening “within the year.” Leifman said it would likely be November. CEO Isabel Perez-Moriña of the Advocate Program said it would likely open by year’s end.
One thing is agreed upon, though. Each client, upon admission to the centre, will have his or her feet washed, said Leifman, who borrowed the idea from a program for the homeless in Boston.
The gesture, an act of humanity and, for the foot-washer, humility, will set the tone, Leifman said.
“We want people to know they’re welcome here,” Leifman said. “Many of them have learned helplessness. They’ve given up because the system is so bad. Half of them don’t care if they breathe, anyway. That’s why the feet washing is so important.”