CRISIS CENTERS AND DRUG COURTS ARE NOT THE SAME!

The Legislature is trying to "fix" former half-baked actions regarding drug
courts and mental health crisis centers, and even further producing half a
loaf.

Remember the drug courts proposal? Drug courts are a cost-effective way to
deal with those whose addictions drive them to steal or to commit other
nonviolent crimes.

Rather than tossing them in prison, as now, ensuring a life of crime, they
can be offered treatment, to deter them from crime. And it's cheap. We
spend about $26,000 per year to house prisoners, compared to $2,000 for
treatment. The 2003 Legislature thought this was such a great idea that it
approved a statewide system. But it didn't fund it.

In another half-baked move, lawmakers in 1999 approved building seven
mental health crisis centers for patients awaiting admittance to state
mental health facilities.

Six are built, but they lack funding to operate. So, some 2,800 mental
patients are now locked in county jails.

So, what have lawmakers done this session? This week, a bill that would
hike court costs by $10 to fully fund juvenile and adult drug courts
statewide was altered so that the money would go to mental health crisis
centers.

Both drug courts and the crisis centers need funding. It's not one or the
other, but both. Prison crowding and spiraling costs demand action; it
makes no sense and is criminal in itself to put the mentally ill in jails.

Education, health care and social services are not frills, but basic
obligations - a duty - of government.