Lawmakers look to take mental health courts statewide


  • December 3, 2015
  • /   Shannon Nickinson and Margie Menzel
  • /   community-dashboard

TALLAHASSEE — A House panel on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill aimed at keeping Floridians with mental illnesses out of the criminal-justice system.

The House Children, Families & Seniors Subcommittee supported the measure (HB 439), filed by Rep. Charles McBurney, R-Jacksonville, that would create a statewide framework for counties to offer treatment-based mental health courts.

Escambia County already offers such programs, including specialty programs aimed at nonviolent drug offenders, veterans and people with mental health issues. Advocates believe that such programs offer better outcome and treatment for people who use them.

That in turns reduces the rate at which people reoffend, improving public safety and reducing the crime rate.

Crime rate is one of 16 metrics in the Studer Community Institute’s Pensacola Metro Dashboard, which offers a look at the social, economic and educational well-being of the community.

The Escambia County TEAM Court program – short for Teaching, Education, Accountability and Motivation – began operation in May. The program, also referred to as mental health court, provides treatment and supervision other than jail for defendants who have been diagnosed with a mental illness and whose condition contributed to the commission of a crime.

The court’s creation came after a 2013 report by the U.S. Department of Justice listed woefully inadequate mental health care among a laundry list of deficiencies at the Escambia County Jail. The report directed the jail to hire more mental health professionals, to use psychotropic drugs judiciously and responsibly, and to keep better records of mental health issues, among other fixes.

TEAM Court aims to connect defendants with individualized community-based treatment programs and support services so that they may successfully manage their condition while being held accountable for their actions, said Robin Wright, Escambia County court administrator, earlier this year.

It is modeled after Okaloosa County’s Mental Health Court, which began in 2003. Read more here.

Escambia County Circuit Judge Edward P. Nickinson, III in Pensacola. Michael Spooneybarger/ Studer Community Institute

Escambia County Circuit Judge Edward P. Nickinson, III in Pensacola. Michael Spooneybarger/ Studer Community Institute

In June, Circuit Judge Edward P. Nickinson III helped launch, Escambia County’s veterans court, the second one in Northwest Florida.

In 2010, Okaloosa County Judge T. Patterson  Maney created a veterans court as a result of the post-traumatic stress disorder he had dealt with after suffering a traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan in 2005.

Since it inception, 40 of nearly 80 participants in the program have completed their treatment and graduated, said Carl Jett, Okaloosa County’s veterans court coordinator. As of April, 36 veterans remain on the docket getting assistance through the court.

The success rate is relatively high. Only six veterans — 15 percent of participants — have failed to meet the requirements for completion, Jett said. Read more about that effort here.

The bill voted on Dec. 2, would establish a pilot program in Duval, Broward and Miami-Dade counties to serve offenders who have mental illnesses and are at risk of being sent to state forensic hospitals or placed behind bars. And it would widen the pool of veterans and service members who are eligible for veterans' courts by including those with general discharges.

"It's a no-brainer," Barney Bishop of the Florida Smart Justice Alliance told the committee.

McBurney proposed a similar measure in the 2015 session. It passed the House 113-1, but died in the Senate Appropriations Committee after the House adjourned the session early.

"People with serious mental-health problems are causing great problems with our criminal justice system," McBurney said Wednesday. "And it's severely breaking down our criminal justice system."

A legislative bill analysis said as many as 125,000 adults with mental illnesses or substance-use disorders "that require immediate treatment" are arrested and booked into Florida jails each year. Between 2002 and 2010, the number of Florida inmates with mental illnesses or substance-use disorders increased from 8,000 to 17,000. By 2020, the number is expected to reach 35,000.

Of the 150,000 juveniles referred to the state Department of Juvenile Justice each year, more than 70 percent have at least one mental health disorder.

"It's not appropriate that our jails or prisons be our number-one mental health facility," McBurney said after the vote.

Mark Fontaine, executive director of the Florida Alcohol and Drug Abuse Association, said the use of specialized courts such as those in McBurney's bill has already proved successful.

"For years, the drug courts have been a very successful option," he said. "And advancing the mental-health courts and the veterans courts is only a win for the state, it's a win for the communities and it's a win for the people that are struggling with their mental-health condition."

The bill faces two more committees, as does its Senate companion (SB 604), filed by Sen. Miguel Diaz de la Portilla, R-Miami. McBurney and Diaz de la Portilla chair their chambers' judiciary committees.

House Children, Families & Seniors Chairwoman Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, pointed to the bill's estimated cost — $4.5 million — and suggested that diverting people from jails would save the counties some money.

Chief Judge Mark Mahon of the 4th Judicial Circuit, a former lawmaker, said the measure would be "fiscally responsible" for both the state and the counties in the long run.

"But it's also the humane and right thing to do, to get these people who have serious mental health issues out of the worst place in the world for treatment," Mahon said.

Margie Menzel is a News Service of Florida writer.

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