A look at the debated diversion program for defendants with mental disorders
A relatively new treatment program is available in California for people with a mental illness who have committed a crime, rather than jail or prison.
Tuesday, February 11, 2025 12:37PM
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SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing estimates that more than half of San Francisco’s unhoused population suffers from some kind of mental illness.
Some can be easily identified just by walking around parts of the city. A few end up committing a crime because of their mental disorder. This is what happens next.
Rather than punish them by sending them to jail or prison, Menlo Park State Senator Josh Becker came up SB-1223.
“The reason it was done is because we’ve been warehousing mentally ill people in our jails and our jails are not equipped to give them any kind of mental health treatment and mental health rehabilitation,” Senator Becker said.
Attorney Neil Hallinan is currently petitioning for mental health diversion for six of his clients.
“When you’ve been doing the work for a long time, it gets easier to identify who has “diagnoseable” mental issues,” Hamilton said. “Not that I am qualified to diagnose it but you can tell when something is going on.”
So, who could be eligible for mental health diversion? The courts use a book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, commonly known as DSM-5. You would expect bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and PTSD to be in here, but also included is substance use disorder.
“Addiction is a condition in which the person is literately unable to say no,” added Hallinan.
To clarify, the medical community recognizes addiction as an illness rather than the result of bad judgment.
But San Francisco’s District Attorney Brooke Jenkins believes some people are using an addiction diagnosis as a get-out-of-jail-free card because a person’s felony charge goes away after the person completes a treatment program that could take up to two years.
“We are now seeing people who simply have a drug addiction be able to use that as the conduit to enter into a mental health diversion for committing crimes that have nothing to do with their substance abuse,” Jenkins said.
Many disorders listed in the DSM can make a person eligible for diversion, even ADHD.
“It’s not unfathomable that you could have someone who has had ADHD, maybe it’s an extreme form, maybe it’s never been treated, and the person has all sorts of particular impulses that they never learned how to control,” Hallinan said.
The only people excluded from pursuing mental health diversion are those who committed murder and rape.
Jenkins says she’s seen a spike in the number of attorneys pursuing mental health diversion for their clients, even in a recent case of child abuse.
Last September, a 22-year-old man was charged with severely beating a 4-year-old with a belt, so badly ABC7 was only able to show two evidence photos to illustrate the harm inflicted.
Jenkins and her team argued against mental health diversion.
Still, Behavioral Health Services evaluated the man and found that he met “the diagnostic criteria necessary for participation in Mental Health Diversion,” because he was diagnosed with “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Adjustment Disorder.”
The judge in the case approved the treatment.
Here’s what the Public Defender’s Office had to say about the program:
“The courts continue to take extreme caution, time, and effort to make weighted and careful decisions about what is going to be the most effective route to promote public safety.”
Senator Becker says the program isn’t perfect.
“And if there are cases that it’s not working we want to adjust it and get it right,” Becker said.
Despite some controversial cases, an analysis by the RAND Corporation found people who go to diversion programs are doing better than those who go to jail.
“91% of the people that graduated from LA County’s court diversion program have not had new filing cases since graduation,” Becker said.
The problem is that in many cases, the process isn’t as speedy as one may want.
William Eaton has been in court several times for burglary, destruction of property, setting things on fire, and violating a restraining order. ABC7 has been following the case since last October. A counselor recently found Eaton was eligible for mental health diversion, but the legal system has been slow to provide access to the treatment Eaton needs.