Now marking his 20th year as the sheriff of Polk County, located midway between Tampa and Orlando, Grady Judd is definitely a law-and-order kind of guy.
“First and foremost, I’m a hard-nosed cop, and I believe that people who violate the law should be held accountable and responsible,” he says. But he quickly adds: “I’m also an advocate for those that have mental illness. Through my career, I have seen a significant number of people who are in jail because of a mental illness.”
That’s why Judd is starting up a program at the Polk County Jail, a collaborative partnership among a number of agencies that’s aimed at providing better mental health services and substance abuse treatment to the county’s inmates. The Sheriff’s Office is collaborating with the county’s Health and Human Services Division and a mental health agency called Tri-County Human Services to launch what they call the Substance Treatment Advocacy Recovery and Re-entry program, or STARR.
Among other things, STARR is taking in Polk County’s Helping Hands program, which focuses on inmates who are receiving psychotropic medications while in jail and helps them stay medicated and provides them support once they return to the community. That program is merging with Tri-County’s Alternatives to Substance Abuse program in the jail. STARR will do mental health evaluations while also treating inmates for substance-use disorder. By “breaking down the silos” between mental health providers, Judd envisions more collaboration and better communication. Community organizations like Narcotics Anonymous and others are accepting invitations to come into the jail as well.
And why should we care about inmates with mental health and substance use disorders? Judd says he knows from experience that inmates who have untreated mental health and substance abuse issues are more likely to commit crime once they’re released.
National studies have found that as many as 44% of jail inmates have some kind of mental health disorder and 63% of jail inmates have a substance use disorder, the sheriff says. Studies also show that many inmates released from jail or prison will return to using drugs and alcohol and are arrested again within a few years. By treating the roots of the problem, Judd hopes to prevent future crime and future victims.
“We send people to jail or prison, but they can’t afford their medicine. So even if they want to get better, a 30-day supply of pills costs $500 or $1,000 and they can’t afford that,” Judd says. “What if we made it a condition of your probation that you take your medicine – and by the way, we’ll provide it — and you go to your mental health counseling?”
The county is funding these programs with part of the proceeds of its local half-cent sales tax for health care. Judd is also working on a pilot program that will offer alternative sentencing options for offenders with serious mental health issues. He says the local state attorney, public defender and chief judge are all on board.
He’s doing all of this at a time when county sheriffs and police chiefs from Tallahassee to Tampa Bay are deploying special mental health units to deal with people who are exhibiting signs of mental illness.
In the state’s capital, the Tallahassee Police Department and the Leon County Sheriff’s Office each have three mobile mental health units. In these units, a specially trained law enforcement officer gets paired with a mental health counselor from a non-profit mental health agency called the Apalachee Center. They team up to handle mental-health-related calls. The deputies and officers wear polo-style uniforms and drive unmarked vehicles so it’s easier for them to approach people in crises.
“Any call where they say, ‘This seems like it’s a mental health emergency,’ that unit goes out there to respond,” says Grayson Bidwell, Apalachee’s mobile response team leader. “They go through crisis intervention where they’ll make sure the person is safe if they are not meeting the hospitalization criteria. But if they do need hospitalization, the unit will initiate the Baker Act.” They’ll follow up afterward to link the person to counseling, medication management or case management.
“Through our crisis intervention training, we’re often able to deescalate the situation,” adds Leon County sheriff’s deputy Paxton Rogers. “Our training helps us understand people who have mental illness, trauma, PTSD, things like that.”
In the Tampa Bay area, the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office along with the Clearwater and Largo police departments now have a dozen mental health units between them. They’re actually trying to cut down on the number of Baker Acts through better crisis intervention and professional evaluation at the scene. And the Sheriff’s Office has started funding full-time dedicated case managers for the most chronically reappearing offenders who have the most significant mental health issues.
“Why is law enforcement doing this? We’re doing it because others are not doing it. The system isn’t doing it,” says Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri. “There’s a void in the mental health care system, and we’re filling the void ourselves. It’s about getting people into services to get them to the best possible place, instead of just taking people into custody and putting them on the hamster wheel of the criminal justice system.”