A new approach to handling mentally ill criminals employs a special court docket to keep them out of prison and get them into treatment. As part of our investigation into the state of mental health care in Virginia, Jordy Yager has this report.
For 43-year old Jan Jarvis, life as he knew it completely changed on a sunny day in June, nearly two years ago, when he met, of all things… a turtle.
JAN JARVIS: This is all over a turtle. This is all over a turtle. Yeah, it’s about to get funny.
Jan was playing basketball in a park in Staunton, when some fishermen caught a snapping turtle in the nearby pond. They didn’t know what to do with it, but Jan wasn’t afraid, so he walked over, grabbed it by the tail and started playing with it.
JARVIS: And somebody called the police station and said I was kicking turtle.
The cop kicked Jan out of the park. But that’s when the trouble really started. Jan violated the police officer’s order.
JARVIS: So I went back to the park, shooting around some hoops. And he came on the court. He tried to grab me, I pulled away. He tased me. That didn’t have no effect on me. I was still running. And then reality came over me. I said, that don’t look right to me, running away from the police over a turtle, playing basketball. So I just gave up.
What the cop didn’t know is that Jan has suffered from untreated bipolar and schizoaffective disorders for most of his adult life. It’s caused him to constantly run afoul of the law, mostly for little things — disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, trespassing in a park.
And Jan’s not alone. Thousands of Virginians suffer from mental illnesses, which, if left untreated, can lead to breaking the law. Which means jail time, where they often receive medication. But that usually stops when they’re released, until they go back to jail for yet another petty crime.
DAVE PASTORS: Back in, I suppose, 2012-2013 we were seeing an unusual high number of clients coming to our office for services that had mental health issues.
Dave Pastors is the director of Blue Ridge Court Services, a non-profit alternative sentencing organization in the Valley.
PASTORS: We were kind of struggling how to deal with those people. So as a result we wrote a grant to help get some funding so we could start a specialized mental health program.
Pastors is a key architect of the program, known as the Staunton/Augusta Therapeutic Docket, or mental health docket. Mental health dockets and courts are becoming increasingly popular throughout the country, offering treatment instead of jail time to people with mental illnesses who have been accused of misdemeanor crimes. And in exchange? Their charges are usually dropped or reduced.
Over the course of 12 months, participants must stay drug and alcohol free, attend individual and group counseling, and follow a strict pharmaceutical plan. But the heart of the program is the one-on-one attention they get. Each person in the docket meets with a mental health clinician and a pre-trial intake officer several times a week to discuss everything from psychological breakdowns to transportation and employment issues.
JUDGE GOODWIN: We started off with one client. And we met for a couple weeks. We added a second one or a third one. And then it started to grow.
If the docket had a Dad, it would be Judge Chap Goodwin. He presides every two weeks. And though it’s not open to the public, I was allowed to observe one Wednesday session. Around four in the afternoon, several dozen docket goers file into the General District courtroom in downtown Staunton. One by one they’re called up to the bench to talk with Goodwin. First, the positive: new jobs, new apartments, clean drug screens.
GOODWIN: And if there’s something that is a real positive thing for them, they get a round of applause from everybody else, and everybody’s genuinely excited about it.
This happens several times, which, if you’ve ever been to court, you know is just not normal. Attendees even applaud for one participant who’s not there, because she just had a baby. In some ways the docket is a lot like a family. Everybody’s laundry is aired out in front of everybody else. And when it’s good, it’s great. But…
GOODWIN: When there is a problem – a violation of the rules, or they haven’t followed their directions, they’ve stopped taking their medication, they have had a step backwards with alcohol or drugs, there is a specific, known to them, up front sanction. And they come in and they know that that sanction is going to be imposed. And that sanction is imposed right then. And if they end up with a jail sentence, they’re going to jail that day.
I saw this twice. One participant got a day in jail, while another got four, because it was their second violation. They were immediately handcuffed, in front of the entire room, and taken through the court’s back door, which remained open and through it, everyone heard the metallic clanging of the holding cell opening and closing behind them. There was no yelling, no cursing, no objection.
Goodwin tells the group that locking one of them up is just as hard for him as it for them. Of course some sanctions aren’t as severe, things like community service or writing an essay.
Nearly two years old, the docket has graduated three people so far, with several more on track for this month and next. But life doesn’t stop there. Last year, Jan was the first to graduate. Since then, Pastors helped appoint him as a peer recovery specialist, and he’s in the process of completing his required volunteer hours of training.
JARVIS: Now that I’ve graduated, I have an opportunity to be a mentor to people who are going through the same thing that I went through. If they can see that I made it and this positive thing has happened, then they know that using drugs and drinking alcohol and coming to court is lame, and they can get on with their lives.