This new Pierce County court focuses on mental health treatment. Here’s how it works
People charged with misdemeanor crimes in Pierce County who suffer from mental illness might qualify for a new program that focuses on treatment, not punishment.
Pierce County District Court started taking referrals for its new Mental Health Court on May 2.
Judge Kevin McCann will oversee the program as part of a two-year rotation.
“We’re confident that this program is going to be beneficial for everybody in this community,” McCann said. “… Breaking the cycle means these offenders are less likely to commit new offenses.”
Participants will go before McCann each week initially and less often as they progress through the program. Outside court, they’ll have treatment and contact with a probation officer throughout the week.
The traditional court system isn’t enough when it comes to mental health treatment, McCann said.
“The old method of prosecution and punishment isn’t working, because they’re released back into the community without addressing the underlying condition,” McCann said. “… The pattern just repeats.”
Mental Health Court is different.
“We feel very confident that if we can interrupt that pattern by getting resources and treatment that they need, that the whole community is better for it,” he said.
Someone who successfully completes the program would see their charges dismissed or reduced, depending on what attorneys have negotiated. Someone who doesn’t successfully complete the program and is terminated from it would proceed to sentencing and potentially face jail time.
It takes about four to six weeks from when someone is referred to the program to when they appear before the judge. Attorneys negotiate and a therapist evaluates and diagnoses participants.
Participants have to be facing a qualifying misdemeanor or gross misdemeanor to be accepted into the Mental Health Court.
Intimate partner domestic violence offenses aren’t eligible, for example. DUI offenses are case-by-case.
“We’re really looking at mostly probably low-level property crimes, criminal trespass, theft, unlawful bus conduct,” McCann said. “You might see some malicious mischief.”
If a participant has restitution in the case that’s more than $1,500, they have to pay it down to $1,500 before they can enter the program.
The judge said they have a memorandum of understanding with a nonprofit, the Pierce County Alliance, to be the sole care provider for participants.
That involves counseling and evaluation and can include support with employment, housing, clothing and other things.
“We get them stabilized in every aspect of their lives,” McCann said.
Pierce County Alliance staffing will allow for 20 participants by the end of the first year, McCann said, and he expects to hit that number before then.
“As the program grows, they will look to expand their staffing,” he said.
The District Court model is very similar to the Pierce County Superior Court’s Mental Health Court, which handles felony cases. McCann said they also looked at similar programs run by the Spokane County District Court and Everett Municipal Court.
The treatment provider for the Superior Court program is Greater Lakes Mental Health, but McCann said they don’t have the capacity to support the new District Court program.
He said the Pierce County Alliance had a couple staff members ready to take on a new case load, and that the nonprofit “aggressively” pursued grant funding.
Behavioral health tax funding
Some of the funding for the new court is from the one-tenth of 1 percent behavioral health tax the County Council passed. The county started collecting that sales tax revenue (a penny for every $10 spent) last year.
The council’s biennial budget for the funding included $1,305,000 for five full-time positions to staff the Mental Health Court.
That budget also included $20,880,000 to be distributed through a competitive bidding process. Requests for that funding were accepted earlier this year, and recommendations for allocating the sales tax revenue were made by the Behavioral Health Advisory Board. Those recommendations are expected to go before the council for approval later this month.
The board recommended $683,206 for the Pierce County Alliance to facilitate the Mental Health Court. That would fund positions that aren’t funded through medical insurance, such as clerical work, for a year and a half. At that point the Pierce County Alliance would reapply for the county funding, federal grants, or other sources of funding if things are going well, said Terree Schmidt-Whelan, the nonprofit’s executive director.
“If we can treat people on a lower level and not get them to the felony process, so much the better for their lives and the lives of everyone else around them,” Schmidt-Whelan said.
The nonprofit is also involved in other local therapeutic courts, such as drug court programs that focus on substance abuse treatment. Good local data about the outcomes of those programs isn’t available, Pierce County Alliance Chief Operations Officer Aimee Champion said, because the number of participants in the county’s therapeutic courts has dropped during the pandemic.
Champion did point to data reported by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals that suggests there’s an average savings of $6,000 per drug court participant and up to a 58 percent drop in recidivism.
Pierce County’s website says the Felony Mental Health Court started in 2015 and “had 64 participants, 56 graduates and 7 recidivists” as of the end of 2019.
The District Court’s drug court program doesn’t have participants right now, as a result of the state Supreme Court decision last year that found the state’s drug possession law unconstitutional, McCann said. They just haven’t seen cases that qualify at the District Court level, he said. They do have an active Veterans Treatment Court.
Therapeutic courts in Pierce County Superior Court include the Felony Drug Court, the Felony Mental Health Court and a Family Recovery Court — a program that aims to reunite parents with children in state custody by providing the parents substance use treatment and other services.
Therapeutic court models are evidence-based, Champion noted.
“These are emerging best practices, recognized nationally,” she said.
This story was originally published May 6, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
