County Mental Health Court set to receive extra $200K
A designated court in Hamilton County designed to assist offenders suffering from mental health issues such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder is poised to receive an additional $200,000 in annual funding, boosting its capacity to serve people in need.
County commissioners will consider a resolution Wednesday that would authorize the county to accept nearly $90,000 from the state to support the Hamilton County Mental Health Court from May 1 through June 30, which is the end of the county’s current fiscal year.
Beginning July 1, the program would receive an extra $200,000 per fiscal year for the foreseeable future.
Hamilton County
General Services Administrator Christy Cooper said the turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic made mental health needs a priority for state officials, who wanted to put more funding into related initiatives.
“We’ve got a lot of people who go through the justice system that are committing crimes not necessarily because they have criminogenic behavior but because they have mental health issues,” Cooper said in a phone call Monday.
Cooper said the court will use the new state dollars to replace a grant that was previously available for a clinician position, which is set to expire June 30. The program will also be adding a navigator, a function currently filled by Executive Director
Beka Bohannon.
“When we have someone solely in that role, they’ll be able to hopefully more expeditiously bring more cases in, so ultimately we’re going to be increasing capacity for later on down the road with the addition of these positions,” Bohannon said in a phone call.
Bohannon said she and her team assesses people who apply for the program to determine if they meet a set of evidence-based eligibility criteria. The case then moves to an assigned assistant district attorney and assistant public defender to determine if applicants meet the legal requirements to qualify.
Bohannon said the court specializes in treating people who are “severely and persistently mentally ill.” That could include people dealing with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder and combat-related posttraumatic stress disorder.
The court assisted 55 participants in 2022 with four staff members.
Hamilton County’s mental health court began in 2015, launching as a way to provide offenders with mental illnesses the opportunity to receive alternative sentencing in exchange for mandatory treatment and increased accountability.
Cooper said the program doesn’t admit offenders accused of serious crimes such as murder or sexual assault.
“We see a lot of frankly domestic violence committed against parents, disorderly conduct cases,” Judge Lila Statom, who oversees the court’s general sessions docket, said in a phone call Monday. “Mainly cases where people are obviously not on their medicine, (and) if they were, they would not be people who would end up in jail.”
During the pandemic, officials witnessed a decrease in people participating in the mental health court program because of limited access, Statom added, but there has since been a substantial increase in cases.
“This really is a winwin-win-win,” Judge Boyd Patterson, who manages the program in criminal court, said in a phone call about the program.
Prosecutors are able to separate people suffering from mental illness from serious offenders, he said. Defense attorneys are able to ensure their clients are taken care of in a humane way, police don’t have to worry about incarcerating someone who requires more supervision, and taxpayers don’t have to cover the extra cost of keeping someone in jail, he said.
Bohannon noted that it costs twice as much to house an inmate suffering from a mental illness. Prisons also aren’t designed to treat those issues.
“The key is identifying the appropriate people, bringing them into the court and them having that high level of accountability — every week they’re coming to court and seeing the judges,” she said. “It’s a collaborative effort with the courts, me and my team and then also their community health provider that will provide services to them long after they’re done.”