Last week, the Macomb County, Mich., Jail was overcrowded - not an unusual circumstance for the facility, which was designed to accommodate 1,438 people and has been struggling with overcrowding issues for nearly two years now.  But administrators there hope to alleviate that problem in the next year with some help from the Michigan Department of Corrections.

About six weeks ago, the state DOC agreed to fund a pilot program at the jail for the remainder of 2004 and 2005.  Its goal is to divert 100 mentally ill offenders from incarceration each year.

"The jail is not a place for a mentally ill client," said Russ McPeak, Community Corrections Manager in Macomb County.  "It's more appropriate, if they're not a danger to the community, to put them back out into the community."

The DOC accepted the county's proposal for the Jail Mental Health Reduction Program because it had a lot of promise, said Russ Marlan, a spokesperson for the agency.

"We think it's a very good program and, hopefully, we'll see some good results," said Marlan.  "This is something that builds community support to address the needs [of mentally ill offenders] as far as housing, education and transportation, which is really going to help support public safety and it will do so cost effectively."

According to Michelle Sanborn, Jail Administrator, the $291,000 the DOC provided to the county is being funneled through its community corrections program. 

"They're already diverting a lot of people from the jail," Sanborn said.  "That's part of their job."

Right now, a temporary employee has been hired to get the program off the ground.  Soon, though, the county will hire a permanent case manager who will work with the jail, the court and community providers - the program's three key players.

Working Together

With these entities working together, the county hopes that more mentally ill offenders will be able to get the treatment and support they need to rehabilitate in the community rather than lingering in a jail cell.

"We'll do an evaluation in the jail.  We'll talk to the person, run a criminal background check on the person to find out what their past experiences have been in the criminal justice system and we'll make a determination if there's a safe placement in the community for them," McPeak said. 

Then, he added, they ask the court to either amend the offender's sentence or do a conditional bond release mandating that they go into the program.

"We try and catch them as early as possible, but they can be diverted pre-sentence or post-sentence," Sanborn said.  "If they are not violent offenders, we place them into whatever level of care [in the community] that is called for."

The offenders who are diverted from the Macomb County Jail into the community can be placed in a variety of treatment programs, including residential treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, regular outpatient treatment and dual diagnosis programs.

In addition, the county sets up appointments with psychiatrists in the community when the offenders are first released to determine whether or not they are on the appropriate medications, McPeak said.  Making sure they take those medications, he added, is one of the biggest challenges with this population.

"In my experience, the main drawback is the lack of medication compliance," McPeak said.  "When they stop taking their medication, a lot of times, they self-medicate with illegal drugs and it's back to the revolving door syndrome."

To help keep the offenders on track in the community, the program aims to reconnect them to their families, so they will have the support they need to rehabilitate. 

Strengthening Support Systems

"That's what the case manager is doing is trying to make the reconnections with the family because [living with their families] is a preferable setting.  If you know much about these dually diagnosed or these mentally ill folks in the criminal justice system, a lot of times they've burnt their bridges already with the family and to reconnect is a struggle."

Aside from bringing the mentally ill offenders back together with the families, community corrections staff also keep an eye on them in the community to ensure that they have the resources they need."

"They're being monitored by community corrections," McPeak said.  "A lot of times, they're also placed on probation and being monitored by the probation department.  All of them are still under the authority of the different courts that had jurisdiction originally."

And, in two weeks, the program has proved that this new approach is worth it.

So far, the community corrections department has been able to divert six mentally ill offenders from the jail.  Several more offenders have already been identified for the program, as well.

Sanborn believes that the program is off to a good start.

"We hope we'll be able to do what we set out to do," Sanborn said.  "If we do, we're hoping that funding [will] continue from the state, but, if it doesn't, it should be more than clear to the county that it's much cheaper to get people out [of jail and into treatment than] to continue the cycle that just doesn't work."

According to Marlan, if the program accomplishes its original goal of diverting 100 mentally ill offenders from the Macomb County Jail in a year, the DOC would definitely consider funding it beyond 2005.

"If we can help open up jails beds and get offenders with mental health problems that might be causing their criminal lifestyle the treatment they need, it helps everybody," Marlan said.

Resources:

Sanborn (586) 307-9346

Michigan DOC (517) 373-6391

McPeak (586) 307-9465