Strange Coincidence

Strange Coincidence

I received a copy of the Treatment Advocacy Center's newsletter from my mother yesterday, mentioning that this bill had passed the Idaho legislature with not a single NO vote. And then I see this July 17, 2008 Idaho Statesman article about it:

But alcohol was just part of the problem; the 25-year-old also was contending with an untreated bipolar disorder.

His dual diagnosis - mental illness plus addiction - once would have been a likely ticket to a life in and out of Idaho prisons. But today it makes him like most of the participants in Ada County's mental health court, a rigorous rehab program created to find a better way to treat mentally ill offenders.

Now clean and sober, Moore keeps himself going with Alcoholics Anonymous and cigarettes. He's traded his daily bottle of rum for Mountain Dew, carrying it in a big thermos to his job at Honk's bargain store.

"My boss tells me I'd bleed green if I ever got cut," he said.

At the end of July, after 20 months in mental health court, Moore and two others will "graduate" from the program.

A BETTER, AND CHEAPER, WAY TO TREAT SOME

The country's first mental health courts were created about a decade ago, on the principle that prison is neither effective punishment nor a deterrent for the mentally ill.

Judge Michael McLaughlin set up Ada County's version on orders of the state Supreme Court in 2005.

Left behind bars without treatment, people with mental health disorders will leave prison in worse shape than when they went in, McLaughlin said.

And that can have a huge impact on communities - 97 percent of all offenders eventually get out of prison and live among the general population.

McLaughlin sees mental health court as "an ounce of prevention for a pound of cure."

That prevention is a lot cheaper, costing between $2,500 and $3,500 per person a year, while it costs $20,000 to keep an inmate in prison, McLaughlin said.

Idaho's program is still young. Kelly Norris, program coordinator, said finding the perfect candidate for the program - someone whose mental illness is the reason for their criminal activities or addiction - is an ongoing process that becomes more refined all the time.

National studies show mentally ill people placed on regular probation have a 90 percent chance of returning to prison. When they enter a mental health treatment program, the rate falls to 35 percent.

I've mentioned before studies of IOC programs in Victoria, Australia, and the IOC programs of other states. One aspect of Idaho's Mental Health Court that makes it different from these other IOC programs is that it is specifically for those who have come to the attention of the criminal justice system for relatively minor crimes. The IOC programs of other states include those who are mentally ill and have significant problems, but aren't necessarily those who are going to prison. This is certainly an area where Idaho needs a more typical IOC program.