(Jan. 5, 2017) Judge Steve Leifman is a pioneer in the decriminalization of mental illness in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
Through his criminal mental health program, Judge Leifman helps divert nonviolent offenders with serious mental illness who have committed petty crimes away from the criminal justice system and into long-term community treatment (“A separate justice system for the mentally ill?,” OZY, Jan. 5).
Judge Leifman helps people like Justin Volpe.
A decade ago, Volpe, 33, stopped taking medication to treat his schizophrenia. Instead, he became addicted to street drugs and was arrested on charges of a petty theft. Volpe could have fallen into a vicious cycle of repeated arrests as a result of his untreated mental illness, but he got a second chance thanks to mental health court.
“[My family] got me linked to the jail diversion program Judge Leifman started,” Volpe said. “They got me out, put me in a recovery house and moved me to treatment, and I started taking meds again.”
Now, Volpe works as a peer specialist in Judge Leifman’s Criminal Mental Health Project helping others, like himself, who have a mental illness and need treatment, not punishment.
What Are Mental Health Courts?
There are now 350 adult mental health courts in the U.S., up from around 150 a decade ago. They’re designed to help curb the ever-increasing number of inmates with mental illness in jails and prisons across the country by offering qualifying nonviolent offenders the opportunity to avoid incarceration on the condition that they comply with a mental health treatment plan in the community.
This is especially important in Florida, where the odds are 4.9 to 1 that a person with mental illness will be incarcerated rather than hospitalized.
According to Judge Leifman, 70 percent of the defendants in the felony diversion program successfully complete his program. Since 2008, the program saved Miami-Dade County roughly 25,000 jail days, and recidivism has been reduced from 75 percent to 20 percent. Instead, many potential inmates have been diverted into the mental health system.
“Our jail audit plummeted,” Judge Leifman said. “We closed two of our jails.”
Simply put mental health courts work. However, most counties across the country do not currently provide mental health court alternatives. They must follow Judge Leifman’s lead and implement this evidence-based program in order to reap its benefits and provide treatment, not punishment for defendants with mental illness.
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