Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 68, No. 18 - May 2, 2019
Inside
This Issue
Calendar of Events.............2
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................5
City Council..........................3
Classifieds............................3
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne Happenings....2
Lawndale..............................4
Legals.......................... 4,5,6,7
Pets........................................8
Weekend
Forecast
The Weekly Newspaper of Inglewood
Library Helps Pick Up the Pieces
The Inglewood Public Library gives lessons to children of any age and up on how to improve and development their skills of chess. Here is a photo from this week, showing that kids are already on board.
Photo: City of Inglewood
Friday
Partly
Cloudy
65˚/57˚
Saturday
Partly
Cloudy
64˚/56˚
Sunday
Mostly
Sunny
63˚/57˚
Prosecutors Embody the Spirit of
Mental Health Awareness Month
By Rob McCarthy
Los Angeles County didn’t wait for the start
of May’s National Mental Health Awareness
Month to announce something that had never
been tried before in California. Defendants
with mental illness won’t see the courtroom
if they agree to get treatment.
District Attorney Jackie Lacey explained
that L.A. County defendants can go through
a mental health diversion program rather
than go to trial if they qualify. Advocates for
criminal-justice reform long have argued for
more compassion for people with psychological
and emotional disorders, urging courts to
send those defendants into treatment programs
rather than jail or prison populations.
“Our goal is to protect the public and to
assist people in getting the mental health
and other services they need to be productive
members of our community,” District
Attorney Lacey said at the January launch
of the mental-health legal unit.
Local prosecutors, judges and parole officers
are being recruited to adopt a new
mindset toward mental illness and how long
sentences without treatment worsen people’s
conditions in jail and prisons. Inmates who
go undiagnosed for episodes of bipolar or
traumatic stress disorders -- both common
among adults and youth -- often serve longer
sentences because they act out and defy
authority while they’re incarcerated.
The prosecutorial review team is the latest
effort in Los Angeles County to offer legal
and physical protection for people with
mental disorders. Lacey’s office in October
was honored for a partnership to train 1,400
police officers, sheriff’s deputies and law
enforcement personnel. The first responder
training was a collaboration with the Los
Angeles County Department of Mental Health
and the County’s Chiefs of Police to train
frontline law enforcement officers. Officers
learned how properly to handle calls involving
people with mental illness.
The National Alliance on Mental Health
tracks the most common disorders among
American adults and children. NAMI reports
that 18 percent of U.S. adults experience an
anxiety disorder like post-traumatic stress
disorder, phobias or obsessive-compulsive
behavior. One in 25 adults experiences a
mental disorder that interferes with normal
life activities, according to the alliance.
People with a substance abuse or who’ve
been homeless show the highest rates of
mental illness, according to NAMI. It’s almost
50 percent for drug users and 26 percent for
those living in homeless shelters. In the past
in L.A. County, the cases of defendants with
histories of drug use and bouts of homelessness
wouldn’t have stood out to prosecutors.
But that changed in January with the launch
of the Mental Health Division within the district
attorney’s office. The dozen prosecutors
assigned to the new unit are trained to handle
clear-cut cases involving defendants who’ve
been declared mentally ill. Lacey’s legal team
works with the county’s 1,000 prosecutors to
review and recommend which defendants are
mentally incompetent. Even borderline cases
are referred to the unit.
Defendants who ask for alternative sentences
because of psychological or emotional disorders
are eligible for the diversion program in
Lacey’s office. The DA’s team says it must
balance compassion with public safety so
that dangerous defendants who don’t need
mental health treatment aren’t allowed to
evade prosecution. “We also want to make
sure that jails and prisons are reserved for
the most serious and violent offenders,” the
DA said.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month
nationwide, and this year the outreach will
explore topics of animal companionship,
spirituality, humor, work-life balance, and
recreation and social connections as ways
to boost mental health and general wellness,
according to NAMI. The DA’s office calls the
new division “the first of its kind in California
and, possibly, the nation”
Lacey has told the 1,000 prosecutors in her
office they can consider a person’s mental
health and history in deciding whether to recommend
diversion. Her new unit can help the
prosecutors work through the decision-making
and protect the program’s integrity. “With
this policy, I am encouraging my lawyers to
make courageous decisions and do the right
thing,” Lacey said. “We must make informed
decisions to ensure public safety and help
another human being in crisis.”
California’s penal code created the diversion
option for people with mental disorders to
seek treatment when they are charged with a
crime. Once the defendant completes treatment,
the criminal charges will be dismissed and
the criminal record is sealed. Misdemeanor
and felony defendants can be considered for
mental health diversion.
A 2015 report by the Center for Prison
Reform based in Washington, D.C. noted
that defendants avoid the stigma of a criminal
record and jail time when they use a diversion
program. This helps them to find employment
and move back into the mainstream, the authors
said. Diversion programs also benefit
the criminal justice system, allowing it to
focus on more serious offenders. The county
and state corrections departments save too.
Incarceration costs for inmates with mental
illness run higher than other prisoners because
of medication, treatment and what the report
calls “disruption.” Diversion cuts down on
hospitalization and crisis services for county
and state corrections, the center reported. It
estimates the criminal justice system can
save $47,000 for each nonviolent felony drug
offender diverted into a treatment program.
Recidivism rates are lowered by 26 percent
when mental health courts handle such cases.
Los Angeles County has a mental health court,
which works in tandem with the DA’s office
and the county Mental Health Department. •