News Index

Mental Health Courts: Promise and Problems
Speech to Illinois Academy of Criminology
May 19, 2004

• Lots of mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system
  • DOJ study found 12 to 18% of prisoners were mentally ill
  • Illinois DOC has 6,000 mi's v.5500 in all public and private mental hospitals
  • Cook County Jail : 1,000 to 1,500 persons with mental illnesses
  • Getting exact number depends on definition--what is mental illness?
     
• Problems caused by mi's in criminal justice system
  • Costs:
  • Processing: lawyers, judges, bailiffs, court reporters, clerks
  • Jail (pre-trial detention) costs (with or without treatment)
  • Convicted prisioners: $20,000/person/year Dixon (with or without treatment)
  • Lack of treatment–conflict between world view of criminal justice system and the mental health system
  • Recidivism–criminal justice/mental health
  • Costs to victims
     
• History of Mental Health Courts
  • Patterned after drug courts
  • Broward County , FL (Indianapolis/King County,WA/Alaska)
  • Federal demonstration grants
  • Local initiatives: Cook, DuPage, Kane, Winnebago
     
• Goals of Mental Health Courts
  • Main goal–reduce jail costs
  • Reduce other criminal justice costs
  • Reduce recidivism
  • Increase medication/treatment compliance
  • Increase community mental health funding (They've stolen all our clients; let's steal all of their money)
     
• Model(s) of Mental Health Court(s)
  • Send mentally ill criminal defendants to one or more dedicated courtrooms
  • Which crimes (usually limited to non-violent misdemeanors)
  • Which diagnoses–do we include dual diagnosis (MISAs)
  • Usually not Axis II
  • Plea bargaining model
  • Probation/supervision
  • Judicial involvement (hard/soft)
  • Who provides treatment/who pays for treatment
  • Liaison to court/TASC model/probation officer
     
• Do they work? What does that mean? Reference to goals
  • Anecdotal support–counties who start mh courts do not terminate them
  • UVA/MacArthur Foundation study
  • Reduce recidivism–compared to what?
  • Reduce criminal justice costs (jail costs)
  • Increase treatment compliance
     
• Problems/Concerns
  • (Improper?) Coercion
  • Only way to get mental health services is to commit a crime/compare to substance abuse services in criminal justice system
  • May confuse role of criminal defense counsel
  • Other interventions may be better
  • Provide discharge planning services (jails and prisons)
  • See Thresholds/DHS/Cook County Jail award winning model which reduced recidivism by more than 60%
  • Police training
  • Just more mental health services–why target criminals

NORVAL MORRIS THE MODERN DAY JOHN HOWARD

[The power of political leadership in pursuit of popular support by relentless and unscrupulous means has surely and frequently been demonstrated….a public misled by false statistics, sensational and selective sound bites, and political leaders seeking votes is plain to see….Consequently, a prison regime defines the razor edge between power and freedom, authority and autonomy. NM ]

Norval will be missed by many; he was a classic burr-in-the-saddle; his work regarding conditions-of-confinement, super-max prisons, and the plight of the mentally ill behind prison bars is seminal.

In his last book, a compelling roman de cliff, entitled: Maconochie's Gentlemen: The Story of Norfolk Island and the Roots of Modern Prison Reform, the humanism and the incisive intellect of Norval Morris are beautifully revealed. Published in 2002, the novel gives a vivid portrayal of Alexander Maconochie's heroic achievement of creating a "token economy" for rewarding positive behavior through a convict "Marks System" in the penal colony at Norfolk Island, a thousand miles off the coast of Australia , 1840-44. Moreover, it shares a passionate belief that a virtuous prison is possible in the process of maintaining humane and safe prisons. This belief epitomizes the life and work of Norval Morris.

Why would anyone devote himself to penal reform? If there is a viable alternative, why choose to suffer the chill breath of adverse public opinion, the bemused stares of neighbors, the frustrations and lack of reward? It is a vexing question; a satisfying answer is not easily come by. Yet, down through the history of prisons, penal reformers are legion. In contemplating the extraordinary saga of John Howard (1773) and his narrative, The State of the Prisons in Europe and England, Norval makes note of his own life's journey of penal reform.

In an incomparably lesser way, I have devoted the last five-and-a-half decades to the minutiae of prison regimes in four continents. Yet, a vocation in the academic side of criminal law provided all I needed by way of a comfortable, professional, and personal life. To add myself to the list of prison reformers is not to draw a self-serving comparison. Rather, it is to seek an answer to the troublesome question: Why should anyone of reasonable ability see the conditions of prison life as meriting serious and sustained concern? So, when devising prison conditions, you should devise them for yourself. (NM)

As the nineteenth century American prison reform heroine, Elizabeth Gurney Fry has advised: If thee should build a prison, consider thee and thine children might inhabit it. In tribute to Norval Morris, and at his behest for achieving a better understanding of the dilemma(s) of corrections, I recommend an absorbing read of "Manonochie's Gentlemen." Here one will find the heart and soul of a life committed to penal reform. Here, too, one will discover how we will all continue to benefit from the enduring legacy of Norval Morris.

Jess Maghan
Chester , Connecticut ( 2/25/04 )

UIC News

For the community of the University of Illinois at Chicago

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/uicnews/articledetail.cgi?id=6136

By Paul Francuch

11/14/01

Scientists assess threat of biochemical weapons

The history of using biological and chemical weapons to kill and terrorize is both long and tawdry.

Records from the 14th century tell of adversaries hurling plague-ridden corpses to ward off enemies. Poisoning an enemy's drinking well is a time-honored tactic. Photographs hideously document the horrors of mustard gas use during World War I.

Most recently, of course, there's been anthrax by mail.

Two experts — UIC chemistry professor Robert Moriarty and Rush University professor of cardiovascular surgery Russ Zajtchuk — told a campus audience Monday that today's situation is one of concern, but not panic.

Moriarty has been interested in the science of chemical weapons for decades.

He says that while there are various classes of such weapons, like blistering agents and cyanide, perhaps the most fearsome are nerve agents because they're relatively easy to make and disperse in contained areas, like a subway system or strapped to a terrorist who blows himself up.

Nerve agents can maim or kill, depending on level of exposure and promptness of treatment. And for many people, they're downright scary.

"That's the part that appeals to terrorists," said Moriarty.

"Chemicals in general are unknown and people tend to have panic reactions to them.

"We saw this in 1995 when the Aum Shinrikyo cult released sarin in a Tokyo subway.

"Some 5,500 sought medical treatment, but 4,000 of them had no real symptoms or effects from the nerve agent. They just panicked."

Moriarty says a half-century of U.S. military research has helped develop protection and detection devices, as well as self-injection treatments after exposure.

But he says the general public and emergency response teams need better preparation.

"If you're exposed to a low amount, the first symptoms are usually that eyes will tear. That's a signal to get out of there.

"Serious things can follow, including cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. Blood pressure can rise leading to cardiac arrest, or you can suffer respiratory collapse and die."

In work done at UIC in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Moriarty worked with U.S. Army medical researchers to develop a pretreatment, vaccine-like drug to protect against the deadly effects of nerve agents.

"It treats nerve agents like a foreign substance. An antibody grabs it, and through molecular engineering, the antibody cleaves and destroys the agent."

Laboratory tests on mice using exposure to the most lethal nerve agents showed an impressive 80 percent survival rate.

But the research remains on file and has yet to lead to drug treatments because there has been no sense of urgency.

Zajtchuk draws a parallel picture for the catch-up work needed to protect against bioterrorism.

A naturalized U.S. citizen born in the Ukraine, Zajtchuk said he's always viewed biological and chemical weapons as a major threat to civilization.

Before his appointment at Rush, Zajtchuk was a brigadier general in the U.S. Army, heading the medical research and material command at Fort Detrick, Md.

"It's been said that there are enough nuclear weapons to destroy half the world," said Zajtchuk.

"I believe there are enough biological weapons around to destroy the whole world 10 times over."

Zajtchuk says while he "doesn't lose sleep" worrying about a terrorist using the Ebola or Marburg viruses ("they're unstable," he said, adding "the terrorists would probably kill themselves trying to grow it"), he's concerned about the threat from smallpox, plague, tularemia and its symptom-similar bacterial cousin, anthrax.

As has been proven recently, anthrax spores are persistent and relatively easy to work with. Infection is also treatable if caught early enough, requiring four vaccine doses and a booster every six months.

The retired Army doctor thinks Russia may offer the most immediate hope for anthrax protection.

"They have a live, attenuated vaccine, and it's very good," he said. "When I was in Russia two weeks ago, the health minister said they'd give it to us. I think we should take them up on the offer."

More worrisome to Zajtchuk is the smallpox virus, eradicated worldwide several years ago but with tightly controlled reference samples kept by both Russia and the United States.

He said some lots of the virus were unaccounted for after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent job loss by thousands of research scientists.

Zajtchuk worries the missing virus could have been sold to enemies and a contagion could start through an infected terrorist.

While confident of substantially more government funding to guard against the now-real threat of biological and chemical warfare, Zajtchuk said many emergency centers lack the proper treatments and medicines and staff are often ill-prepared to make accurate diagnoses.

"It's no longer 'if' it will happen, but 'when,'" he said.

"We have to better educate and train people about these weapons. That's the best thing we can do."

The talk was sponsored by the Illinois Academy of Criminology, a 50-year-old professional organization of criminal justice professors, students, police and correctional officers. Retired UIC criminal justice professor Jess Maghan is past president.

President's Message
To read the President's message, please click here.

Judge Fitzgerald’s Special Committee on Capital Cases
On Wednesday, January 26, 2000 the Executive Committee, the Board, Officers and members met at Loyola University to vote on taking a position on the report of Judge Fitzgerald’s Special Committee on Capital Cases. After a sometimes vigorous discussion a unanimous vote was taken in favor of endorsing the committee's recommendations. A proposal of a prosecutorial standard was also presented. Read the President's Message for more information.

Panel
Following the meeting on January 26 a Panel was conducted on Balancing Individual Privacy and Rights and the Needs of Law Enforcement and the Courts in Ensuring the Safety of the People. David Struckhoff moderated the panel which included: Mel Wallace, Vincent Samar and Harvey Grossman.   Mr. Wallace provided several anecdotes regarding police practices and their consequences.  Such tales included racial profiling and other methods used to initiate contact with citizens.  Mr. Samar discussed the origins of privacy concepts.   Mr. Grossman listed the three threats to privacy in the new millennium as being : new technolgy, new databases and old-time surveillances.  He recognizes the need for police in a democratic society but has concerns over several of the tactics used.

Panel: Videotaping Interrogation of Suspects
October 21st, the Illinois Academy of Criminology presented a timely program on Videotaping Interrogation of Suspects at the Kent University College of Law.

William Doster, Chief of Police of Kankakee, Illinois commented on his initial reluctance to the use of video cameras in the police station and how it took time to recognize the value of this tool.

Michael A. Kick, State's Attorney of Kankakee, Illinois spoke of the need to "seek justice, not convictions" and how the video cameras helped to promote that goal.

Mary D. Powers, Coordinator of Citizen's Alert voiced her concerns about coerced confessions. With her, was Kathryn Stewart of the Northwestern University Law Clinic whose views were more critical. She suggested that the entire interrogation process be videotaped, not just the confession.