Local Judge's View: Incarceration is no way to treat mental illness

One of the main drivers of criminal justice involvement is mental illness. In his book, “The Future of Crime and Punishment,” Dr. William Kelly, a professor at the University of Texas, cites several studies suggesting that well over half of our jail and prison populations suffer from a diagnosable mental illness. Unfortunately, incarceration tends to further destabilize many of these people, as access to required medications and needed therapy is limited at most confinement facilities. Many of these same people also suffer from homelessness, unemployment, and addiction. Some of them tend to be the people committing nuisance crimes, and occasionally more serious ones, which affects our overall quality of life.

These are not problems that we can solve by simply locking up more people — or locking them up for longer periods.

Criminal justice agencies, including the courts, are trying to find creative solutions for this problem. One of my colleagues recently attended a mental health summit in the Twin Cities, where several innovative ideas to address mental health in the justice system were presented and discussed:

• New screening tools that can be administered at a jail at the time of arrest and used in conjunction with the pretrial assessment tools the courts already use to evaluate risk and identify need for services.
• Having social workers stationed at the local jails to better connect people with mental illness to appropriate services in the community.
• Connecting mentally ill inmates with peer-to-peer supports early in the justice process.
• Expanding Assertive Community Treatment, or ACT, teams. These are multidisciplinary, community-based teams usually consisting of mental health practitioners and other support staff who help people suffering from mental illness manage their symptoms, housing, employment, and medical care. Some ACT teams are now including criminal justice agency personnel, forming “Forensic ACT teams.”
• Nursing staff who can administer injectable medications to people in homeless camps and at other off-site locations.

In the Northland, there is a mental health team that includes judges, social workers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, community outreach workers, treatment professionals, and law enforcement to implement some of these ideas and to look for other ways to better address the underlying issues of treatment barriers, access to services, and how to handle the “frequent fliers” in the criminal justice system.

In addition, our judicial district has several specialty treatment courts that focus on connecting participants with mental health issues, notably the mental health courts in Duluth and on the Iron Range. These courts have treatment professionals on their teams and emphasize medication compliance, attending all ongoing therapy or counseling appointments, and work with social services as needed. Participants in these courts attend frequent review hearings, where they are held accountable and subject to sanctions if they do not follow through with their treatment or services as directed.

The problem of how to address mental health is neither simple nor easy. There are no magic solutions. Increasing incarceration for these people does not result in any long-term successes, however, and likely makes situations worse. But the criminal justice professionals in our communities are working very hard to help the mentally ill get the help they need while also preserving public safety and holding offenders accountable.

Dale Harris of Duluth is a judge in the Sixth Judicial District.