JAIL ALTERNATIVE

Treatment Center Could Ease Pain, Costs

Volusia County officials know the connections between mental illness,
poverty and incarceration all too well. The homeless man begging on the
sidewalk today might be in the branch jail tomorrow on a petty offense.
Health officials in the jail do their best to minister to the needs of
inmates, but in a week or a month, the jail term is over and their former
patients are back on the street.

It's a cruel progression, and an expensive one. It costs money just to make
an arrest and book an inmate into the county jail. Once a person is behind
bars, the county must pay for food, clothing and other necessities.
Mentally ill or addicted patients -- who often need extra medical attention
or supervision -- are among the most expensive to house. Multiply those
costs by the dozen or more arrests per year that the county's "frequent
fliers" average, and the financial burden grows rapidly.

The County Council apparently understands the dilemma these prisoners
represent. In their January goal-setting session, they made jail
alternatives a top priority. Council members made it clear, during
Wednesday's budget workshop, that their concern hasn't waned.

The council reviewed a preliminary proposal by the Community Services
Department to construct a $4 million, 125-bed center with treatment room
for inmates with mental illnesses and addictions, as well as chronically
homeless people and veterans with mental illness. It would probably be
similar to a facility operated in Duval County, which houses and treats
mentally ill people for at least 120 days, giving them time to become
stabilized before they're released.

It's hard to underestimate the impact such a facility could have on this
county's jail system, and on the community. Nobody wins when non- violent
and homeless people are caught in the hopeless circuit that leads from the
street to the cell and back again. The only obstacle seems to be a concern
that the county lacks budgetary elbow room for such a project in the fiscal
year starting in October.

That cost should be considered in light of the number of people the county
pays to keep in jail now -- people who indisputably don't belong there.
Leaders should consider the savings if some of these offenders -- arrested
repeatedly for crimes like loitering, public drunkenness and trespassing --
could be helped to reclaim their lives. If council members have doubts,
they should talk to the experts: local criminal-court judges, who see the
same faces repeatedly at arraignment; law enforcement officers, who see the
tension between the community and these outcasts; and workers at agencies
like the Homeless Assistance Center, who struggle to help people rebuild
their shattered lives in between jail stints.

Whenever it is built, the jail-alternative facility will be welcomed as a
step toward more humane and cost-effective treatment. But the sooner the
facility opens, the better.