Monday, Sept. 16, 2002 | 10:59 a.m.
The 30-year-old woman has been arrested 23 times for prostitution. She is mentally ill, addicted to drugs and mentally handicapped. She is also pregnant with her eighth child.
She is lucky, though, because she lives in Washoe County.
There a group has come together to help her and people like her -- people who are in and out of jail and the courthouse on a regular basis.
It's called Mental Health Court, and it is one of only a handful in the country. Judges and other local officials hope that Clark County will soon follow suit.
"I realized while running Drug Court that drug-addicted people don't respond to normal procedures, and I also realized that mentally ill people don't respond in traditional ways either, that a lot of times they'll disappear and go out and re-offend," Washoe County District Judge Peter Breen said.
It wasn't until Breen attended a seminar in Seattle two years ago, however, that he realized something could be done about the problem.
The seminar addressed Mental Health Courts, which work similarly to Drug Courts. Nonviolent criminals agree to take part in court-ordered programs with the understanding that their criminal charges can be dismissed or lowered if they are successful for a specific period of time.
Most of the offenders commit only misdemeanor crimes, such as battery, trespassing and prostitution, but they commit them so often that they take up a tremendous amount of time for law enforcement officers, jailers and judges.
"I wanted to stop the revolving door from under the bridges to the jail to the streets back to under the bridges," Breen said.
Breen was so impressed with Seattle's program, he immediately put together a committee to study starting one in Washoe County. In a matter of weeks Breen and others were pitching the program to legislators.
The good news was that legislators passed a bill allowing justice court and municipal judges to transfer appropriate cases to District Court, Breen said. The bad news was legislators couldn't come up with the money to fund the program.
"I went into the doldrums because we had no money, but then I had a young attorney call me," Breen said.
The attorney convinced Breen that the court could operate, at least on a small scale, a Mental Health Court with the help of volunteers from the sheriff's office, court services, Nevada Mental Health Institute, Department of Social Services and Project Restart, a nonprofit mental health corporation.
Since November Breen has been spending his lunch hour on Wednesdays with more than a dozen mentally ill and drug-addicted defendants. He ensures they are doing everything they should to stay out of jail: taking their meds, working, attending counseling sessions and learning job skills.
"Our first client didn't stay and we lost her," Breen said. "We got into this thinking we were going to save everyone, but now we realize we just have to have more patience. I think it's working really well now."
Of the 25 people who have signed up for the program, 21 are still participating, Breen said. One defendant failed to appear in court, one was allowed to leave and two others were kicked out for anti-social behavior.
The numbers have so impressed Clark County District Judge John McGroarty, he and a committee of mental health experts and law enforcement officials are gathering information on Mental Health Courts to see if there's enough support to start one in Las Vegas.
McGroarty will spend Sept. 23 checking out Seattle's Mental Health Court.
In August Sheriff Jerry Keller reported in a Las Vegas Sun column that 16 percent of the nation's prisoners are mentally ill. He also noted that his officers have identified 25 people in the downtown area who have accumulated 8,113 arrests among them.
Of the 8,000 to 10,000 homeless people in Southern Nevada, 60 percent suffer from mental illness, drug addictions or both, Keller reported.
Something needs to be done to help them, McGroarty said.
"These people are confused for whatever reason. Maybe they were born that way or maybe because of drugs, but if we can maintain them in our community, they will be less of a strain on our system and less dangerous to our community," McGroarty said.
Breen said ensuring these people have the services they need is the key.
"I'm an old war horse and I've seen people in various conditions. When I sent them off to probation, I didn't realize the true depth of their condition," Breen said. "This program has brought home to me the value of medication. It can really turn their lives around and help them to lead relatively normal lives."
Before the Mental Health Court, no one ensured that mentally ill defendants received and took their medications once released from jail, said Sheila Leslie, Washoe County special courts coordinator and assemblywoman.
Often the mentally ill feel fine when they are released from jail, because their medications have stabilized them, but they stop taking their medications once they are out, Leslie said. Soon, they start self-medicating with street drugs and that leads them back into committing petty crimes.
Making sure they stay on their meds ensures they stay out of jail, Leslie said.
"I'm convinced we're saving the county on jail beds alone," Leslie said. "The mentally ill get into trouble more often than any other group I know. They are always getting into trouble for trespassing, urinating in public, petty larceny and dining and dashing (without paying)."
Leslie said the Washoe County program has been such a success, they are applying for a federal grant in the hopes of getting a full-time court services officer to assist them.
She also hopes to convince her fellow legislators to provide funding for such courts during the next legislative session.
"I'd like to see a permanent funding mechanism so that each judicial district could allocate funding for specialized courts as they see fit," Leslie said. "Nevada is at a moment in its evolution as a state where we recognize the need to change our approach in how to handle these people."
archive
