A worthy experiment: Care instead of jail

Patricia Tennyson’s story sums up the logic of Pierce County’s new mental health court.

To judge by her police record, Tennyson would seem to be a prime candidate for a long stay in the slammer.

The 40-year-old woman was charged with first-degree robbery almost a year ago after stealing a case of beer from a convenience store and hitting the owner with another case. By her account, she’d been arrested 122 times before. “This would have been my 10th felony,” she told The News Tribune’s Sean Robinson. “I had seven to 10 years over my head.”

What happened to her instead was mental health court, a program that’s been running since January. Tennyson suffered from stress and anxiety disorders as well as substance abuse. Solve those, and she might just make it as a law-abiding citizen.

After professionals decided she was a good risk, she was allowed to bypass ordinary criminal prosecution and commit herself to 18 months of rigorous treatment and regular appearances before the special court, which Superior Court Judge Edmund Murphy runs on Wednesday afternoons. If she succeeds, the charges will be dismissed. If she fails, she will face prosecution.

Mental health court hasn’t proven itself yet in Pierce County; it’s too new. The idea has been catching on around America since the 1990s, though, and other Washington counties, including King and Thurston, adopted it before Pierce did.

The concept is inspired.

Too many jail and prison inmates suffer from some kind of mental illness. A national study last year estimated that 2 million Americans who pass through the criminal justice system each year have a serious disorder. Washington’s Office of Financial Management estimated last year that 5,000 of the state’s 17,500 prison inmates needed some kind of mental health treatment.

Many of these people wouldn’t be in prison in the first place if they’d had decent care.

Only a few, very severe conditions will actually drive violence, but common mood or anxiety disorders — especially when combined with drug abuse and other factors — can help nudge people onto the wrong side of the law. Petty theft, a sidewalk scuffle or urination in public are enough to send a sick person spiraling downward into the criminal justice system.

The scarcity of treatment, especially in Washington, has turned urban jails into psychiatric hospitals. Pierce County has been spending roughly $1.5 million a year treating jail inmates. When they are treated outside jail, and the treatment helps them avoid crimes, both they and the taxpayers are better off.

Tennyson deserves praise for her efforts. So do the Pierce County Superior Court judges who launched this experiment. Mental health court doesn’t have much of a track record yet in this county, but it’s bound to produce better results than the status quo.

This story was originally published November 21, 2015 at 2:49 AM with the headline "A worthy experiment: Care instead of jail."