Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, mental health court, address criminal recidivism in Utah

Posted on March 8, 2012 by comm5775

by JAVAN RIVERA

Taking action to solve Utah’s homeless problem could save Salt Lake City taxpayers thousands of dollars.

Homeless men and women wander the streets of downtown Salt Lake City every day. Many avoid the homeless, brush off their panhandling and go about their daily business. They never stop to think about how these people ended up in their current situation, much less how the growing problem of the mentally ill homeless population might cost far more in taxes than a handful of quarters to a panhandler ever will.

Since 2001, the Salt Lake County mental health court has been helping to reduce the rate of criminal recidivism among Salt Lake City’s mentally ill. Through a system of what Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill likes to call “restorative justice,” the mental health court has reduced repeat offenses through weekly court dates and proper medication. This therapeutic take on justice is what Gill believes will not only help with Salt Lake City’s homeless criminal offense problem, but also save taxpayers a lot of money.

“We are bankrupting ourselves into oblivion,” Gill said of the current system of “zero tolerance” enacted by most of U.S. law and justice systems. “We need to seek out alternatives to incarceration; we need to focus on therapeutic justice, and we need to focus on locking up those we are afraid of, not those who we don’t like.”

Salt Lake County’s mental health court works on what Gill calls a “system approach,” something he thinks of as simple problem-solving. He believes that all too often, the legal system relies on “crisis management” rather than proactively preventing repeat offenses by taking active measures right away. This is the core of mental health court.

“The neat thing about the people we serve in mental health court is that simple medication is often enough to reduce recidivism,” said Jeannie Edens, supervisor of the Day Reporting Center of Criminal Justice Services (DRC).

Edens’ work at DRC allows her to see the benefits of mental health court both for the participants who are sent to the program as well as the taxpayers whose money is being put to more efficient use. She feels that the work being done at DRC is important to a fair judicial system.

DRC provides an alternative to jail time by allowing criminals to participate in intensive case management that includes treatment, educational and employment opportunities to prevent criminal recidivism. DRC  works regularly with Salt Lake County’s mental health court.

“In a regular court setting a judge may not know that a person has mental health problems,” Edens said. “They think it’s just another substance abuse problem and could sentence them to longer and harsher punishments.”

It’s those longer sentences that usually end up costing Utah taxpayers. According to Gill, conservatively, the average cost of detaining, treating and processing a mentally ill criminal offender is often in the range of thousands of dollars. That includes the cost of police dispatch, ambulance, medical treatment, court processing, and jail time—all of which, Gill said, is coming out of the taxpayer’s wallet.

“So it’s not just a good progressive idea that I’m talking about,” Gill said. “It’s become a fiscal reality as well.”

For Gill, however, mental health court provides more than just an opportunity to reduce repeat offenses and increase fiscal efficiency in Salt Lake County’s criminal justice system. It also allows the criminal justice system to treat these mentally ill offenders in a manner that denotes respect and dignity, despite their current situation.

“The worst thing you can do to a person is make them insignificant,  to disrespect them,” Gill said. “This program [mental health court] respects them.”

It’s that respect that Gill believes has helped to bring about the success of mental health court in Salt Lake County. Through the program, officials have seen a decrease of recidivism from 68 percent to between 17 to 19 percent among participants, Gill said. Additionally, the number of “event failures,” the amount of time between significant lapses of criminal behavior, have increased from an average of 230 days to more than 1,300 days.

“Is this a perfect model? Absolutely not,” Gill said. “Is it a better one? Damn straight.”

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Sim Gill: Policing the police

Posted on March 8, 2012 by comm5775

by BILLY YANG

In the United States, we like to think we’re number one in everything we do. There’s one top ranking, however, that the land of the free should not be so proud of: The U.S. incarcerates the most people in world.

More than Russia, more than China — the U.S. has about 2.2 million people in prisons and jails today, according to the U.S Department of Justice.

The majority of people now held in those prisons fall into three groups, which include minorities, the poor and the mentally ill, said Salt Lake County District Attorney, Sim Gill.

Gill, who served as a prosecutor for Salt Lake City for 16 years before he was elected as Salt Lake County District Attorney in 2010, has largely focused on helping to relieve the legal system of the burden of being the largest mental health institution in the U.S.

“The largest, number one, mental health facility in America is the L.A. County Jail,” Gill said. “By default, we have made our jails and prisons the mental health warehouses of our community.”

As a proponent of alternatives to incarceration, and not being content with the status quo, Gill introduced the idea of Mental Health Court to Salt Lake City 10 years ago. There were only eight other similar programs in the country at the time.

“We [prosecutors and police] are here to solve problems, not just simply process and warehouse people,” Gill said.

The chronically homeless and people who are considered a public nuisance generally have some form of mental illness, Gill said. Because they come from lower economic backgrounds, they typically cannot afford medications to help them function in society.

“Drugs are a poor man’s form of self-medication,” Gill said.

The vicious cycle begins when the mentally ill turn to illicit drugs to alleviate symptoms of their disease, such as hearing voices in their heads. They take drugs, cause problems, get arrested and get released from jail, only to head back to square one.

“I know very few mentally ill people who wake up in the morning and say ‘let me see how many crimes I can go out and commit,’ ” Gill said. “Often, the criminal activity is a consequence of their mental illness.”

Gill’s model for Mental Health Court is part of what he calls therapeutic justice. Mental Health Court operates within Utah’s Third Judicial District and is an alternative to jail time for people with mental disorders who have been picked up by law enforcement. The program is completely voluntary, and seeks to provide participants with the help they need.

Mental Health Court targets people who have been charged with misdemeanors and felonies and have been identified with axis one disorders – such as schizophrenia, schizo-effective and bipolar disorders, conditions that can be treated with medication.

People who take part in this program have to maintain weekly contact with their assigned caseworker. This is to help ensure the participant is properly taking medication as prescribed.

“The number one reason why someone who’s mentally ill stops taking their medication… because they start feeling good,” Gill said.

By Gill’s own account, Mental Health Court has been a success. Gill uses the recidivism rate as a measure. Before the program was instituted, the recidivism rate for offenders with mental illness was 68 percent. After Mental Health Court took hold in Salt Lake County, that number dropped to 19 percent.

Another inequity Gill started to examine while he was a Salt Lake City prosecutor is the disproportionate number of minorities in prisons and jails.

Gill, the first Indian-born person to be elected a district attorney in the U.S., served on the Salt Lake Committee on Racial Justice when he was the city’s public prosecutor.

The committee conducted an audit of the prosecutor office as it related to its treatment of minorities. The panel did not find any statistical proof that minorities were unfairly prosecuted. But the audit revealed certain ethnic groups had an arrest rate five times higher than others.

Gill believes such evaluations of governmental agencies are important and sees them as ways to ensure justice is properly served. He also believes audits help identify areas for improvement.

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Mental health court offers refuge for repeat offenders

Posted on March 8, 2012 by comm5775

by BLAKELY BOWERS

Watching as law enforcement officials beat a near elderly man, as ordered by the prosecutor, a young boy was impacted forever.  Eight year-old Sim Gill, growing up in his native India, could not shake the image from his mind. He later found out the man had been wrongly accused of theft.

The childhood experience continues to inspire Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, as he works to restore justice on a day-by-day basis. Gill stands behind his mission statement to be firm and fair, swift and sure of holding offenders accountable for their criminal conduct.

In the United States,  more people are jailed than in any other country. The number of ethnic minorities in prison tops the list. U.S. incarceration rates are growing at a staggering rate. According to Gill, from 1970 to 2011, the numbers of jail and prison inmates grew from 700,000 to 2.2 million.

“We need a new approach,” Gill said. “We are locking up people we dislike, not just the people we are afraid of.”  The jailing of so many people has major impacts on all aspects of life in the United States, he said. The numbers affect society, especially in rising costs to the taxpayer.

What “new approach” could possibly work?  Gill believes it all begins with reforming mental health aid and with offering help to the chronically mentally ill. In order for a new approach to be funded and to work credibly, it needs to be safe for all involved, just and it must make fiscal sense.

More than one-fourth of people in jail suffer from mental illness, Gill said, explaining how the cycle of jail time typically works for the mentally ill: They serve time for crimes such as public intoxication and trespassing, then get released back to the streets and commit the same crimes again.

This is where Gill’s ultimate passion comes into play: Mental health court.  Those who have been charged with a crime and have mental disorders have the opportunity to voluntarily attend the program, within Utah’s Third District Court. Excluding sex offenders, active DUI cases, and excessively violent people, the court’s purpose is to closely supervise mentally ill defendants for 12 to 36 months.

“This is the fair break, the one opportunity given to these individuals who crave dignity of being treated as a human being.” Gill said.

Scott Mathis, a graduate of mental health court, attributes all of his success and confidence to the program. “I was lost, lost and confused. I was without any options and down deep into a dark hole without sight of any change. This program is the reason I am healthy today,” Mathis said. Because mental health court is voluntary, the individuals attending have consciously chosen to be there. The program’s volunteer nature has real impact on a participant’s attitude and commitment. The focus is not simply on punishment, but on treatment.

On its face, the program may seem to be letting criminals off easily. But mental health court‘s long-term recovery goal requires a solid commitment from those who participate. They are required to attend all meetings, get tested for drugs, evaluations and report to their assigned officer. “The program is not easy, that’s all I have to say,” Mathis said with an honest smirk. “It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, but without a doubt, the best thing, too.”

Mathis now holds a full-time job in Salt Lake City, participates in speaking groups and serves as an active advocate for the program that turned his life around forever. “ I had been in and out of jail for numerous reasons, nothing ever changed. If not for the program I would be in jail, with fines up my ass, without any job options, and most critical, my three year-old son would not have a father in his life,” Mathis said.

Mathis has now been sober for almost two years, and has custody of his son.

“The mental health court program has potential to lift up our communities in countless ways. My life would not be the same without it, period.”

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Mentally ill find refuge and help at mental health court

Posted on March 8, 2012 by comm5775

by TRICIA OLIPHANT

About 45 people assembled inside a Third District Courtroom in the Scott M. Matheson Courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City and waited to talk to the judge.

An elderly man, who wore a brown, baggy suit coat that hung awkwardly on his small body, kindly greeted some old friends and then sat quietly among the audience.  He stared at his hands folded tightly in his lap and waited for his name to be read.

A woman, who appeared to be about 25, wore bright, tight-fitting clothing and tall stiletto heels.  Several pairs of large, flashy earrings adorned her ears.  Before sitting down, she chatted with friends, laughing and sharing jokes.

The court bailiff stood at the front of the room and read a list of names. Those who heard their names left their seats and stepped forward.

One-by-one, each stood at the podium and spoke with Third District Court Judge Judith Atherton about the events of the past week.

Welcome to Salt Lake County’s mental health court. The defendants here will not be sentenced to hard time in jail, so long as they commit to certain rules of behavior and take their medication.

The Salt Lake County Mental Health Court was founded more than 10 years ago.

“One of our main purposes here at mental health court [is] to get people to a point that they can maintain for the rest of their lives,” said Atherton, at mental health court earlier this year.

The mental health court program is voluntary. Participants commit to participate for 12 to 36 months.

Those participating stand before Atherton every week as she reviews the weekly report submitted by the participant’s caseworker.

In addition, participants agree to take all medications as prescribed and to obey all laws and other regulations.  Participants have contact throughout the week with their caseworkers to ensure compliance with these regulations.

If participants come to court and are off their medications, Atherton will order them to jail to be stabilized.

“The first thing we’re concerned about, Derek, is your welfare,” said Atherton to a mental health court participant.

The number one reason for mentally ill people to stop taking their medications is that they feel well and no longer believe they need medication, said Salt Lake County District Attorney, Sim Gill, who has made mental health court one of his top social justice priorities.  That is one of the reasons for frequent court appearances.

“Thank you for helping me. Thank you,” said Justin, who graduated from mental health court on Monday. “Everyone in here can do this.”

All who were present, including Atherton, applauded and congratulated the recent graduate.

Those eligible to participate in the mental health court have committed a misdemeanor or a felony, have an Axis one disorder (which means that their disorder can be treated with medical support), and must be legally competent.

Mental health court excludes the participation of sex offenders, those with open-active DUI cases, and the “excessively violent.”
“Is this a perfect model? Absolutely not. Is it a better model? [Darn] straight,” Gill said.

Gill said that the United States once had mental health institutions.  However, the institutions were abused and were therefore demolished by the Reagan Administration during the 1980s.

“By default, we have made jails and prisons [the] mental health institutions of our country,” Gill said. The Los Angeles County Jail,  he said, is the largest mental health facility in the United States.

Gill added that criminal activity is often a result of mental illness.

And, after mentally ill people are released from jail or prison, they often repeat the same crimes or commit new crimes because of their untreated illnesses.

The U.S. leads the world in jailing the most people, followed by China, Russia, and Cuba.

This excess in jailing U.S. citizens uses tax dollars and resources.

Gill said that the solution to this is something he calls “smart prosecution.” This includes alternatives to incarceration, therapeutic justice and locking up only those who genuinely breed fear in society, as opposed to those we simply do not like.

Mental health court is a form of smart prosecution and was created under the “systems,” or problem solving, approach.

“We lowered cost but increased care [with this model],” Gill said.

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Rehabilitating the homeless: Hopeless or helpful?

Posted on March 8, 2012 by comm5775

by FRANCES MOODY

Editor’s note: The following is an essay in response to “Million-dollar Murray,” an article by Malcom Gladwell in the Feb. 13, 2006 issue of The New Yorker

The sight of a drunken homeless man weaving in and out of oncoming traffic isn’t uncommon for a city dweller to witness.  To the average person, such sightings are viewed as blemishes covering the complexion of an otherwise beautiful place.  However, to some, those drunkards are icons that bring character and action to dull metropolitan life. In Reno, Nev., Murray Barr, known on the streets as “Smokey,” was that iconic personality. He loved alcohol and after his daily routine of blacking out, Murray fell to his bed, the sidewalk. One police officer, Steve Johns said, “I picked up Murray my whole career. Literally.” Over the years, Murray had run up a hospital bill of close $1 million, an amount that could have been put to better use.  In his article, “Million-Dollar Murray,” for the (Feb. 13, 2006) New Yorker Magazine, Malcolm Gladwell documents Murray’s story and proposes causes for and solutions to the epidemic of homelessness. Solutions in the article range from extremist law enforcement to long-term rehabilitation strategies.

Though Gladwell offers many resolutions, he ultimately displays society’s conflicting views on the subject matter. Due to legal obligations, political viewpoints and personal opinions, society will never agree on a definite answer to end homelessness.

One such problem associated with the homeless is panhandling. Homeless panhandlers roam the sidewalks of cities. Most panhandle to support drinking habits. The panhandling was for liquor, and the liquor was anything but harmless,” Gladwell writes. Gladwell suggests that begging for money is at an all-time low, but even worse, the products bought with that money present a bigger problem. When inebriated Murray passed out, police and paramedics were called to the scene. At just one of the three local hospitals in Reno, Murray ran a bill of $100 thousand. A logical answer to this problem would be to put a stop to panhandling. The Police Department of Reno held the same viewpoint and commenced an initiative to limit panhandling. Most Reno police took the program seriously, possibly to the extreme. They produced a high amount of criticism. “The crackdown on panhandling amounted to harassment, the critics said,” Gladwell writes. Harassment insinuates unfair treatment of human beings. While homeless men and women, like Murray, choose not to follow the standards of mainstream culture, they still have the same human/ constitutional rights. Homeless panhandling is not a pretty sight, but neither is harassment.

Stopping panhandling in Reno was an easy answer to a multi-layered issue. In an attempt to find an answer, Gladwell analyzes the mathematical distribution of homeless people. Through research provided by Boston College Graduate, Dennis Culhane, Gladwell discovered that the majority of homeless people are homeless for about a day. Such people are not nuisances like Murray, who pass out on the streets day after day. Culhane referred to people like Murray as “chronically homeless.” Only 10 percent of the homeless are associated with this definition. Gladwell recognizes this disproportionate distribution and surely, with close attention, that 10 percent can be rehabilitated.

Murray went through “detox” numerous times. His hospital bills amounted to big numbers and he never seemed to get better. Like most of the chronically homeless, Murray needed help. “They need time and attention and lots of money. But enormous sums of money are already being spent on the chronically homeless,” Gladwell writes. In one year, a group of 119 chronically homeless people in New York visited the emergency room 11,834 times. Each visit cost a thousand dollars. Why not use that money for long-term rehabilitation (in legal terms, known as the power-law homeless policy)? Long-term rehabilitation includes housing and therapy.  The city of Denver decided to use long-term rehabilitation as a solution to homelessness. Enrollees are given apartments, but must follow the program guidelines. Guidelines include: weekly appointments with case workers, doctor visitations, and psychiatric treatment.  “The cost of services comes to about $10 thousand per homeless client per year,” Gladwell writes. Millions of dollars are spent on the chronically homeless. That amount could be reduced to thousands of dollars.

It is convenient to rationalize that long-term rehabilitation is the best way to solve homelessness, especially from an economic perspective. On the other hand, as a moral question, the Power-law homeless policy can be viewed as unfair. “Thousands of people in Denver no doubt, live day to day, work two or three jobs, and are eminently deserving of a helping hand—and no one offers them the keys to a new apartment. Yet that’s what the guy screaming obscenities and swigging Dr. Tich [mouthwash] gets,” Gladwell writes. Shouldn’t the more deserving have access to government funds that offer free housing? This proposes a political issue. Conservatives view the idea of power-laws as unfair to more-deserving members of society, while liberals tend to oppose the idea of civilization turning into a mathematical structure with no human component.  Power-law homeless policy would prove to be non-existent in the two-party system of the United States.

Even if U.S. citizens agreed on long-term rehabilitation to solve chronic homelessness, other problems would persist. For example, a chronically homeless person may plainly disagree that he should change his way of life.  “The idea that the very sickest and most troubled can be stabilized and eventually employed is only a hope,” writes Gladwell. Gladwell gives the example of a man (name unknown) with cirrhosis of the liver. He was 27-years-old. This man participated in Denver’s long-term rehabilitation plan. The policy did not repair him. He trashed two apartments and went straight back to street life, comfortable with his condition. The plague of homelessness and how to solve it has many components. It not only surfaces on legal and political levels, but also on an individual level.

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Utah’s mental health court addresses repeat offender problems

Posted on March 8, 2012 by comm5775

by JASON NOWA

Sim Gill believes that jail is for people who have murdered, raped, or who have harmed children. Jail is not a place for the mentally ill. He is in the process of trying to accomplish this.

Gill, who is the Salt Lake County District Attorney, recently spoke to small group of University of Utah students about his job and the passions that drive him. Gill spoke about various processes,  from how he deals with the death penalty, drug abuse and to the mentally ill committing crimes. The United States jails more people than any other country in the world, he said. Gill estimated around 2.2 million people in the United States are currently incarcerated.

Gill is serious about his duty to the community in keeping the people safe.

“I have a commitment to justice. I don’t get to bend corners,” Gill said.

Gill supervises two divisions within his office: Civil and Criminal. The civil division Gill explained, deals with new ordinances, tax issues and litigation. In the criminal division, Gill and his staff attorneys prosecute murders, rapes, and other crimes against people and property. Gill is serving a 4-year term, with the next election in 2014.

“There isn’t a more fulfilling job than a public prosecutor,” he said.

Gill believes passionately in the concept of “restorative justice.” It follows that when a crime happens in the community it occurs to three sections of people, the victims, the offenders and the community, he said. All are affected in some way.

And Gill added there should be a distinction among those who go to jail. “We lock up people that you fear, not that you simply dislike,” he said.

When asked what type of people Gill is putting in jail, he responded, “We are locking up lower-class minority people, poor people, drug abusers and the mentally ill in our jails.” There is a better way, he said, to keep society safe while deciding how punishment should fit certain crimes.

Since the early 21st century, all across the nation mental health courts have been catching on. Mentally ill criminals were filling up jails for repeated and petty crimes. They would be released and repeat the same behavior, filling up jail space and draining resources, Gill said.

Jackie Rendo, family and consumer mentor and advocate for the Third District Adult Mental Health Court in Salt Lake City, said, “We believe these people who are put in the mental health courts are only committing the crimes that are due in part to their mental illness. If they are treated properly or were never mentally ill in the first place then they would not be committing the crimes that they are. We are simply here to help treat them and help them recover to become successful and law abiding citizens again in our communities.”

The goal of the Third District Court’s mental health court is to help patients function socially, and help provide treatment to improve their lives.

“One in every four adults, and one in every 10 children, about 60 million Americans, suffer from mental illnesses,” Rendo said.

Mental health court helps provide participants opportunities to find housing, jobs, treatment and other support services. Everyone who commits a crime and is admitted to mental health court must go through extensive screening for serious mental disorders such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

Those who qualify for mental health court must commit to 12 to 36 months of supervision. Defendants facing serious felonies, such as DUI or sex offenses, are not allowed to attend mental health court. Once a defendant agrees to the program, he or she meets frequently with counselors, case managers and judges. If the defendant does not cooperate with scheduled meetings, medications, drug tests, or wants to quit the program, the alternative is a return to jail.

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Drug courts beneficial for users seeking rehabilitation

Posted on March 6, 2012 by comm5775

by KATIE HARRINGTON

The Utah State Courts report that arrests for drug-related crimes have doubled in recent years, which has become motivation for the state to turn to drug court programming over incarceration.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill helped to implement drug courts in Utah more than 10 years ago.

But with continually rising drug arrests, the program has become important in recent years as a way to lower costs of incarceration for the Utah taxpayer.

“Drug courts work by recognizing that unless substance abuse ends, fines and jail time are unlikely to prevent future criminal activity,” according to the Utah State Courts.

Gill said the average cost to jail someone in Salt Lake County is $71 a day, a sum that quickly adds up when the rate of incarceration for non-violent drug users is consistently increasing.

“Crime is going to be around,” Gill said. “My challenge has been to create a situation where we can proactively reach in and collaborate with our communities in order to not be crisis managers, but be proactive agents who contribute to alleviating these issues.”

Gill said the way to do this is by promoting rehabilitation. After treatment in drug courts, Gill said, the recidivism arrest rate—that is, the likelihood in which people commit new crimes—decreased from 68 percent to around 23 percent.

John Anderson, a criminal defense attorney in Salt Lake City, said the criminal recidivism rate is universally accepted in the legal system as statistical fact and speaks to the success of the programming.

According to the Urban Institute and the Center for Court Innovation, the success of drug courts has been seen nationwide. A study of 23 drug courts in seven states showed that drug use was reduced by one-third after 18 months of participation in the programs, and the case studies were responsible for half as many criminal acts as those not participating in drug court.

“Largely because of these reductions in criminal behavior, drug courts ended up saving an estimated $5,680 dollars per participant,” the study said.

But Anderson said that drug courts are only successful for those who actually want to be there.

“The courts are hard-core. The requirements to participate are onerous. If someone puts in some effort and takes it seriously, they can curb the addictions and behaviors that got them there in the first place.”

If someone doesn’t want to actively participate in the programming, jail time seems to be the easier alternative, Anderson said.

Tiffany Brown, who served as a Utah Assistant Attorney General and Salt Lake County District Attorney, has actively worked with drug court participants.

“It’s hard for me as a taxpayer or as a member of the legal system to incarcerate a person who is solely ingesting substances that are harmful to him or herself,” Brown said. “So when you have that straight drug user who doesn’t go out and commit property crimes or violent crimes, or doesn’t harm anyone else, I don’t want to waste money on that person—ever.”

Brown said drug court programming is an effective way to reduce costs because the taxpayers are not providing health care, foster care, and other programming for incarcerated people or their children.

But the system is not perfect, Brown said.

“It’s a uniquely designed system that helps take a step back from traditional legal procedures and promotes rehabilitation,” Brown said. “But flaws exist as a result of the inability to totally fund the system in the way that it needs to be funded, in order to ensure that the people who are participating are more concerned about usage and less concerned about being caught.”

If the person lacks the desire to recover, the program’s benefits drop substantially, Brown said.

But Gill said that overall, drug court is both the economically and psychologically sound alternative.

“It’s not just a good progressive idea that I’m talking about,” Gill said. “It has become a fiscal necessity.”

“The worst thing you can do to a person is make them feel insignificant.” Drug court programming has started to prevent that, he said.

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