PROBATION OFFICIALS OFFER HOPE FOR THOSE WITH MENTAL ILLNESS

In Chemung County, Program Aims to Treat People With Disorders, Drug Problems.

Chemung County hopes to lead the way with a new statewide effort to
address a serious problem in the criminal justice system.

Officials believe the program could save taxpayers money while more
effectively dealing with a significant number of the people who run
afoul of the law.

A large percentage of people who come into the system have mental
health disorders or substance abuse issues, or often both. But the
system is set up to punish people who commit crimes and not to deal
with some of the underlying problems that often lead to those crimes,
according to local criminal justice and mental health officials.

That's starting to change, and a new program launched by the Chemung
County Probation Department is a step in the right direction, said
provisional probation director Tom Bruner.

"The criminal justice system has been shortsighted in working with
individuals with mental health disorders," Bruner said. "We used to
warehouse them in large, abusive institutions. It's been replaced
with a new system -- prison. It's morally repugnant to take some of
the most vulnerable people in our society who commit a crime and end
up in a jail cell but still have a disorder.

"Because they continue to have a mental health disorder, they often
end up in the worst possible situation -- solitary confinement," Bruner said.

Bruner's solution isn't costing the county any more money but is
focusing more attention on the needs of jail inmates and probation
clients with mental health issues.

To achieve that, Bruner took one of his probation officers and
created a special caseload for her. That officer will focus solely on
clients who come into the system and are flagged with potential
mental health and/or substance abuse issues.

"She will monitor these individuals and make sure they are in proper
treatment. It's intensive supervision," Bruner said. "We have someone
who comes here once a week, an expert in mental health issues. She
meets with our officers to discuss cases that are problematic."

Bruner has worked closely with the county Department of Mental
Hygiene, the sheriff's office and Family Services of Chemung County
to develop the program.

He launched the initiative after attending a conference in the fall
sponsored by the New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitative Services.

There's a statewide push called Project CONNECT that also involves
the state Office of Mental Hygiene and Division of Probation and
Correctional Alternatives to re-evaluate the way the criminal justice
system handles people with mental health disorders, said association
Deputy Director Mathew Mathai.

"Across the state and the country, there's a growing recognition that
people with psychiatric disabilities and those with addiction are
more and more likely to also be involved in the criminal justice
system," Mathai said. "There's research that demonstrates people with
even the most severe mental illness can recover.

"The idea was to come up with a process and money for technical
assistance to allow (local agencies) to talk to each other and get
training from each other to help them integrate values of wellness
and recovery," he said.

Warehousing people with mental illnesses in jails and not properly
treating them is not only unfair to the individual, but it puts an
extra burden on the system and the community, said Brian Hart,
director of community services for the Chemung County Department of
Mental Hygiene.

"Certainly the vast majority of those coming into the legal system
have either mental health or substance abuse issues," Hart said.
"That plays out when you look at specialty courts. We have three drug
courts in our community.

"We continue to design programs that will triage people better so
they aren't ending up in jails, and really focus on the jails and how
to move people off of constant watch in a quicker fashion, so they
are not sitting there and having high-end service they may not need," he said.

Those high-end services are also high cost, said Chemung County
Sheriff Christopher Moss.

A system that better sorts people coming in so that the people who
need mental health services the most get them can benefit those
people and save taxpayers money, Moss said.

"It's very costly. We spend $200,000 a year in overtime for
individuals on constant watch because of suicidal or homicidal
tendencies," said Moss, who said all jail inmates are screened for
mental health disorders on intake.

"What we're tying to do is make sure there isn't overlap in services
provided. It will be good for one person to keep track of it," he
said. "Long term, we want to save some funds but also make sure
inmates get the mental health services they deserve."

The Chemung County Probation Department currently supervises about
1,000 adults, Bruner said.

Six officers handle about 100 cases each from the general population,
while another two officers oversee high-risk felons and one handles
sex offenders. Another three officers work with juveniles who are
making the transition to the adult system, Bruner said.

The officer who was assigned a month ago to work with clients with
mental health issues has about 10 people to supervise so far, and
Bruner would like to limit her caseload to about 25, because each
client requires intensive supervision.

Bruner said that it's a small step given the enormity of the problem
but added that an important step and one which he hopes will catch on
around the state.

"I'd love to see a statewide cooperative effort to put this on the
front burner, and really put the resources into the community to work
with this category of individual," Bruner said. "We've been pointing
fingers at each other without doing a lot of talking. We have to stop that.

"We want the community to be safe, but we want these individuals to
be treated humanely and fairly."