The Criminal Justice System and the Mentally Ill

In the approximately 10 years I spent trying cases before the international tribunals, I got out of touch with the criminal justice system in Houston. Now that I'm back, I see that there are more mentally ill people in the system than when I left. A whole lot more.

Last weekend, my psychologist interviewed three defendants in the Harris County Jail. He says two are incompetent to stand trial.

One is charged with assaulting a police officer. It's the second time he's been charged with that. In 2004, he was found incompetent, sent to a state hospital and returned after he was treated and returned to competency, he pled guilty.

The other is charged with drug dealing. He thinks he's the "Earth King."

Both have been through the system many times before.

Just about any felony judge and just about any intellecually honest prosecutor or defense attorney will admit that the holdover cells in the courthouse are filled with people who have severe mental illness, many of whom self medicate with cocaine. Nationwide, taxpayers probably spend billions of dollars annually to lock up the non-violent mentally ill. Given the number of pills taken by some of my clients, the county's pharmacy bill alone must be staggering.

OK, I understand that a lot of mentally ill people can be violent and dangerous. We need secure facilities for them, but perhaps they should be more hospital-like than prison-like. The goal should be to treat people, get them out of the criminal justice system and work towards a return to society.

We have had untreated more and more mentally people on the streets since the 1960s, when Gov. Ronald Reagan started closing mental hospitals and putting the patients on the streets. The theory was that it would be cheaper and more humane to treat them with medications through local programs han it was to keep them hospitalized with Nurse Ratchett.

The only problem is that there has never been enough funding for local treatment programs.
The end result is that these folks include many if not most of the homeless. They're often dirty and strange looking. Nobody wants them in front of their business, stores or restaurants. So, there's pressure to get them off the streets.

Add that to the self medicating and you have a revolving door to the jailhouse.

I don't have the answers. If I did, I'd run against Gov. Goodhair and, hopefully get more than 39 percent of the votes. But, as a society, we owe these, often the least of our brethern, something better than the Harris County Jail.

There needs to be someplace other than the criminal justice system to deal with these people.