Lake County joins national mental health initiative

Lake County is among 67 city, county and state governments selected by the Obama administration to participate in a new national initiative to identify and help people who are low-risk offenders suffering from mental illness.

As part of the Data-Driven Justice Initiative, the county will use data-driven strategies to divert low-level offenders with mental illness out of the criminal-justice system and into effective, community-based care, Lake County Board Chairman Aaron Lawlor said in a news release.

The county was selected because of its ongoing efforts to reduce incarceration.

"Lake County, and the nation, are combating a crisis related to properly treating people with mental illness," Lawlor said. "I believe this is the greatest moral imperative for our leaders to address.

"Our jails should not be mental health hospitals. By working together, we can not only save taxpayer resources by reducing our jail population, but also help stabilize families and better serve our communities."

A delegation from Lake County, including District 13 Board Member Sandra Hart and Lake County Sheriff's Deputy Chief William Kinville, visited the White House this year to share information and build on data-driven strategies that have been successfully implemented in other jurisdictions.

"Sadly, many of the individuals in our jail have been there many times before, what we refer to as 'super-utilizers.' They are often chronically homeless, suffer from mental illness, substance abuse and health problems," Sheriff Mark Curran said.

"Often, individuals going through pretrial proceedings stay in jail because they can't afford to bond out. Through this initiative, we will target these key populations and try to divert low-risk offenders so they can get the help they need to get well, and not return to jail."

To join the initiative, Lake County and its justice partners have committed to:

• Creating or expanding real or near-real time local data exchanges that combine justice, health or other system data, to enable identification of public system "super-utilizers;"

• Diverting this population, and people who may be committing low-level crimes primarily due to mental illness, from the criminal justice system before arrest, where appropriate, and linking them to care management or other community-based services;

• Continuing to use data-driven risk assessment tools to ensure decisions on pretrial release are informed by validated methods of gauging defendants' risk to the community.

Chief Judge Jorge Ortiz said the county has been a leader in pretrial monitoring as an alternative to incarceration, started a mental health court in 2007 and is working with the sheriff's office on crisis intervention team training.

The county also has received funding to hire an expert to help plan for a future crisis drop-off center.