Senator Eliot Shapleigh - El Paso, Texas

This month, Harris County’s criminal district judges voted to create a felony mental health court, the first one in the county’s history to focus exclusively on felony defendants diagnosed with such serious conditions as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and severe depression.

This is a smart move on several levels. Introduced about a decade ago, mental health courts, which now number more than 150 nationwide, seek to provide more humane treatment of the mentally ill through treatment plans and social support services, thereby breaking the cycle of repeat offenses and jail terms, and reducing jail and court costs.

Only the sixth in Texas, the county’s new court will be in the capable hands of state District Judge Jan Krocker. On the bench since 1995, she initiated a pilot project to put mental health professionals in courtrooms to make assessments and suggest treatment options. It worked so well that mental health professionals are now included in all 22 of the county’s felony courts.

Although Texas ranks 46th in the nation in per capita funding for the mentally ill, it was the first state to establish an agency within its criminal justice department to address mental health issues, in 1987. Since then, says Dee Wilson, Director of the Texas Correctional Office on Offenders with Medical or Mental Impairments, the agency has helped other states start similar programs.

To Wilson, the primary benefit of the new court is that it will safeguard the public at large. “It’s not being soft on crime,” she told the Chronicle. “We’re looking at better, more efficient ways to enhance public safety.”

Newly elected Harris County District Attorney Pat Lykos echoed that sentiment, calling the criminal justice system a “last resort” for many mentally ill repeat offenders. “This is a moral issue,” she is quoted as saying. “It’s a dollars-and-cents issue.”

Those dollars-and-cents issues are weighing particularly heavy on the Texas Legislature, which last session appropriated $82 million for crisis services to the mentally ill. It is already on notice that funds will be down this session, which started last week, to the tune of more than $9 billion.

But fewer funds need not mean fewer positive outcomes, and funds wisely spent can save much more than their costs, both in dollars and in human capital. In Monday’s Chronicle, Bill Murphy, reporting on the new felony court, cited a local program, New Specialized Team of Advocates and Rehabilitation Therapists — New START — which serves mentally ill probationers.

A study by the county of two courts where most mentally ill probationers participated in the New START program showed that 4 percent of them had their probation revoked over a two-year period. During the same time period, 30 percent of mentally ill probationers who had not participated in the program had their probation revoked.

New START received state funding of $3 million this year for a program serving 300 former inmates. That runs about $10,000 per person. The county has estimated that treating a mentally ill person in jail and emergency psychiatric wards runs about $80,000 per year, per person.

Murphy reported that on any given day, almost 20 percent of the Harris County jail’s 11,000 inmates are medicated for mental health issues. In fact, the jail’s mental health facilities and personnel make it Harris County’s largest psychiatric hospital, treating more than 7,700 defendants in 2007.

Judge Krocker has said she would like to work closely with New START as her court gets under way. Legislators might keep her in mind this session as they ponder how to get the best return on those scarce taxpayer dollars.