Omaha World-Herald: Editorial Page
Friday, June 10, 2005

A humane approach: Diversion can help stop revolving door for sufferers of mental illness.

Lancaster County has made significant strides with its Mental Health Jail Diversion Project.

Instead of sticking offenders in jail even though they suffer from severe and persistent mental illnesses- bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, major depression-or co-occurring substance –abuse disorders, the project provides resources to help them make a turnaround.

Just finishing its second year of a three-year grant from the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the program is primarily for people who have committed nonviolent misdemeanors, though plans are in the works to offer assistance to mentally impaired low-grade felons.

How it works: After the arrest and booking at the Lancaster County Jail, inmates are screened by a licensed mental-health practitioner. This person works with the prosecuting attorney and judge to make a persistence recommendation. At a later date, a progress report is given to the judge in lieu of sentencing.

Participants are monitored for 18 months from the time of diversion. It takes about nine to 12 months to make a transition from the intensive level of care in the program - assistance by case managers with counseling, medication and housing-to more community-based treatment.

It is off to a good start. Of the first contingent of people in the program or completing it, 11 percent got into subsequent trouble with the law. That is a significant improvement from 27 percent, the number of mentally ill not in the diversion program who get into trouble again.

In addition to reduced recidivism, the program eases the financial burden on the jail system and hospital emergency rooms and other higher-cost inpatient services.

The grant is just under $300,000 a year, but enough money may be left to fully fund a fourth year, said Travis Parker, project director. The Lancaster program - one that restores dignity to the mentally ill and eliminates the revolving-door effect - is the only one of its kind in the state.

Douglas County officials, however, have been working for months in researching how to best bring a mental-health track to the area. Groups that don’t normally interact, like mental-health providers and law enforcement agencies, have been meeting. A grant the county received this year has enabled and will enable county officials and law enforcement officers to attend conferences for training.

An anecdotal study found that 21 percent of the 119 people admitted to the Douglas County Jail during a week in April answered yes to one of the three questions used to determine it someone has a serious mental illness, said Brent Bloom, chief deputy Douglas County attorney. The need is there.

Bloom said he hopes to start a program this year if funding can be secured.

Mental-health jail diversion programs are, as Parker of the Lancaster project pointed out, important public-policy tools for the entire state.

Other counties, with the help of those at the state level, would be wise to follow suit - not just for the reduced crime and incarceration costs but also for the real transformation of people’s lives.