Rebuilding Lives. Strengthening Communities.

MAYORAL POLICY CAUCUS ON PRISONER REENTRY
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following completion. For those participants who
graduated from October 1999 through May 2004, felony
arrests decreased by 92 percent, total arrests decreased by
82 percent, 87 percent had no felony arrests, and 93
percent had no felony drug crime conviction. 84
In 2004, Cook County opened a “mental health court,” the
first mental health court in the country to exclusively hear
cases of criminal defendants accused of felony violations.
This court voluntarily diverts individuals with chronic
mental illness arrested for non-violent offenses into appropriate
community treatment programs instead of jail or
prison for a 24-month probation period. This specialty
court recognized the public safety risk posed by mentally
ill individuals, the difficulties associated with housing
them, and the inadequacy of the criminal justice process
in dealing with this population. 85
Of the 30 individuals referred to community treatment
during the court’s first 18 months of operation, only two
individuals were arrested for new offenses. These same
men and women averaged four arrests and two convictions
per person in the year before the mental health court
diverted them to community-based treatment. 86
CIT officers, specially trained in handing individuals with
mental illness and co-occurring substance abuse, work
with the mental health court by serving warrants issued by
judges assigned to this court. These officers have served
more than 40 warrants without incident, and have been
successful in locating individuals quickly and returning
them to Cermak Health Services at Cook County Jail,
thereby keeping individuals in the program and reducing
recidivism significantly. This court recently received a
$1.2 million grant from the Center for Mental Health
Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration as part of the Targeted Capacity
Expansion for Jail Diversion Initiative. This grant will add
150 individuals to the program, and allow the Chicago
Police Department to train an additional 250 CIT officers
to assist with the expansion of this court. 87
Similarly, the State’s Attorney’s Office offers a diversion
program for non-violent drug offenders with limited criminal
histories. Known as the State’s Attorney’s Drug Abuse
Program (SADAP), or “drug school,” it provides participants
with 10 hours of educational classes aimed at
increasing awareness of the implications of drug use in
one’s life (medically, socially, vocationally and legally). For
individuals who successfully complete the program, all
pending charges are dismissed and they are immediately
eligible for expungement. In 2004, nearly 4,600 people
were offered and accepted the “drug school” alternative.
Studies have shown that 85 percent of successful graduates
(those individuals who completed the program) were
not rearrested for a drug offense in the following three
years. 88
The City should gather data to compare costs of existing
diversion programs versus costs of incarceration and
processing, and explore other promising approaches that
have potential for replication or expansion as well as savings.
For instance, the new Cook County Jail Diversion
Program legislation proposed by Cook County
Commissioner Earlean Collins creates a pilot program to
develop alternatives to incarceration for individuals with
mental illness and substance abuse issues accused of misdemeanors
and minor felonies. It also establishes a crisis
center and an advisory panel to oversee the effectiveness of
the program. 89
INSPIRATION FROM THE FIELD:
PROPOSITION 36 IN CALIFORNIA
In the November 2000 elections, California
voters approved Proposition 36, also known as
the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act,
as a major shift in criminal justice policy. It
required substance abuse treatment, not jail, for
individuals convicted of drug possession or use
and for non-violent parolees who test positive for
drug use. The state Legislative Analyst’s Office
estimated that the Act could eventually save the
state between $100 and 150 million per year and
counties about $40 million per year.
According to the University of California at
Los Angeles, which is studying the impact of
Proposition 36, this initiative has yielded
excellent results during its first several years of
implementation. The completion rates were
comparable to those in other diversion
programs, such as drug courts, even though
participants on average had longer histories of
drug addiction, and half of them never had access
to treatment before. The future of Proposition
36 is now at issue in the California legislature.
Sources: Cornett, Craig and Dan Carson, “Implementing
Proposition 36: Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities,” Legislative
Analyst’s Office, December 2000, http://www.lao.ca.gov/2000/
prop36/121400_prop_36.html (accessed November 29, 2005);
“Evaluation of the Substance Abuse and Crime Prevention Act:
2004 Report,” http://www.uclaisap.org/Prop36/documents/sacpa
080405.pdf (accessed November 29, 2005).