A Court of Their Own for the Mentally Ill

Ever since state mental hospitals have been shut down, many mentally ill have ended up on our streets and then in jails and prisons. Indeed, approximately one-third of our nation's inmates are mentally ill, and getting little to no treatment while incarcerated. But today's guest, Judge Ginger Lerner-Wren, author of Court of Refuge: Stories from the Bench of America's First Mental Health Court, has begun to change this and make it a more compassionate system. Judge Lerner-Wren tells the story of the court's growth from an offshoot of her criminal division to a court that has successfully diverted more than 20,000 people with serious mental illness from jail and into treatment facilities and other community resources. When the mentally ill are put into jails and prisons instead of into treatment, it starts them down the wrong path and more tragedy unfolds. Judge Lerner-Wren's model has been replicated, but many more such courts need to exist.