"There should be other options for mentally ill offenders that don’t include jail, says Suzanna Gee, associate managing attorney with Disability Rights California. The law that governs competency proceedings allows for certain felony ISTs— those who’ve committed low-level, nonviolent offenses—to be placed in a court-approved outpatient treatment program instead of a state hospital.
“What’s happening in practice is that people aren’t going to these community programs,” Gee says. “They’re only going to the state hospital primarily.”
A court spokesperson confirmed that San Diego County has no conditional-release treatment programs for felony ISTs.
Such programs are less expensive than putting someone in a state hospital and would, ideally, get a person into treatment faster.
“The statute on placement isn’t being really applied fully,” Gee says. “You’re harming the client, you’re costing the state and you’re getting, really, an inefficient system.”
[For more of this story, written by Kelly Davis, go to http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sand...in-the-criminal.html]
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