Diversion

To be clear, we are not talking about people who have committed serious felonies. That is another discussion. But the large majority of people who are involved with the criminal justice system are charged with fairly minor offenses -- what may be labeled disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, public intoxication, shoplifting or other petty theft, maybe getting in a fight or vandalizing property of someone they're mad at. As we have seen, a lot of these people have diagnosable mental and/or substance use disorder, limited education and job skills. 

 

As we have also seen, if they are convicted (or more realistically, coerced into pleading guilty), and sentenced, whether that includes incarceration or just probation, their chances of getting a job, acquiring job skills, and getting the help they need just get worse. And what should be obvious, but somehow seems not to be for a lot of people, they're going to be back on the streets pretty quickly, so if you're worried about them committing more crimes, a criminal sentence is just going to increase that likelihood, not reduce it. 

 

What makes more sense depends on the individual's needs. I'm not going to talk about someone in the category of Jordan Neely, who had what we call a Serious and Persistent Mental Illness, in his case diagnosed as schizophrenia. He was arrested multiple times and had been incarcerated, which obviously didn't help matters at all. He needed more intensive services in a structured environment than the program I'm going to talk about here, but what he certainly didn't need was to be strangled to death. He did not get the former.

The pretrial diversion program I'm working with is targeted, for now, at people who have been charged but not yet "tried." Again, they're very unlikely to have a trial but they have a trial date, usually 10 months to a year out, at which their case would have a disposition. There's thought of expanding it in the future to people on probation or people who are released from jail, but that's not what we're talking about today. Bail may come with some requirements, such as seeking treatment, which is likely to be impossible, seeking employment which might be impossible (a background check will reveal the charges, even with no conviction, and some employers won't hire), a restraining order. Violation of the restraining order or re-arrest will mean revocation of bail. 

So, a nonprofit community based organization has a foundation grant to provide comprehensive services on referral from pretrial services or the judge. If the person agrees, they'll get a commitment that if they complete their service plan and aren't rearrested, their charges will be dismissed when the trial date comes up, and their record will be expunged. They go to the program and they get a comprehensive assessment of their educational, employment, medical, behavioral health, and housing needs, and family and social situation. Then they develop a service plan with a counselor. Most of the services people will need are all right there, under one roof; and if they need more intensive services, say substance use or psychiatric treatment, the program has outside resources available.

The program, appropriately, emphasizes employability and employment. As we've seen, that's the number one problem people with criminal justice involvement report, and that's the key to staying out of trouble -- having a job that pays enough to live decently, provides structure to your life, and a reason to get out of bed in the morning, go to work and stay out of trouble. So getting your GED, counseling and training about how to operate in the job market and the workplace, whatever psychiatric, medical or substance abuse treatment you need, getting stable housing -- all of that may be a part of it. But the program also has direct connections to training and employment opportunities, and an agreement with the building trades council to provide training in construction trades and investment funds to actually buy old houses and rehabilitate them, as way of directly employing clients.

So, this does cost money, which in this case is not coming from the taxpayers. But some of it is paid for by Medicaid, which people are already entitled to, and of course everyone is entitled to a high school education. Beyond that, it costs a hell of a lot less than incarceration, and if it means a lower likelihood of re-offending it will save the taxpayers even more money. My mission is to evaluate it and determine if it really works and really does all that, but it makes a whole lot of sense. Treat people as people, listen to them, find out what they really need, solve their problems, and welcome them into the community. Or, treat them like garbage, ignore their real needs, and put them in a brutal and dehumanizing environment for six months to a year. Which do you think will have a better outcome?