More than 60% of the inmates with a mental illness in the L.A. would be eligible for diversion if there were more facilities, according to a new study.
Such a move would save the county hundreds of dollars a day in incarceration costs for each inmate and, for many, end a cycle of being arrested and released, then becoming homeless and getting arrested again, the medical director of the county’s Office of Diversion and Reentry, Kristen Ochoa, said at a news briefing. Thousands of inmates could be taken out of the criminal justice system, she said, citing the study conducted by the nonprofit research agency Rand Corp.
About 30% of those in the county jail each day are either in the mental health ward or receiving psychotropic medication. That number stands at about 6,000, after rising steadily in recent years.The Rand report, which confirmed the findings of an earlier study by the Office of Diversion and Reentry, was conducted to determine how much the county should scale up its community-based mental health services to divert all eligible inmates.
The Rand study looked at a sample of the 5,544 inmates with a mental illness to determine whether they would qualify for diversion and whether they met the clinical standard for it. Researchers found that 60.8% would be eligible and another 7.5% might be eligible but would require further assessment.
“This makes sense. The outcomes for people will be so much better,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “But I think there’s a lot of hard work out there in real life on actually building this kind of capacity in our communities. I find my biggest frustration currently is just locating shelters for the homeless.”“It is about access to outpatient care,” she said. “Until we do that, diversion is going to fail.
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