The LA Times reports on the slow implementation of AB 1810 in San Diego County, in part due to resistance from prosecutors. The mental health diversion law, AB 1810, which was signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last June 27, is intended to steer people with mental health conditions into treatment and away from jail or prison. It gives judges discretion to order defendants into a pretrial diversion program for treatment instead of prosecution. If the person’s mental health treatment is ultimately deemed successful — the diversion can last up to two years — then all charges will be dropped. If at any time the judge determines the treatment isn’t working, the criminal case can start again.

In San Diego, only 2 defendants out of 19  – in cases ranging from residential burglary to vandalism – have been granted diversion. San Diego prosecutors have opposed pretrial mental health diversion in every case, contending the law is unconstitutional on a variety of grounds, including that it is too vague and violates victims’ constitutional rights. In court papers in each case, the prosecutors call the law “a dangerous change to the manner in which criminals with mental health diagnoses” are treated in the criminal justice system. And they also argue that defendants may have a qualifying mental disorder but lack a specific plan for treatment — which should disqualify them from diversion.

The LA Times reports on an apparent surge in arrests of homeless individuals in Los Angeles in the past two years, despite official efforts to reduce quality-of-life citations  — restricting sleeping on the sidewalk, living in a car or low-level drug possession, for example — from misdemeanors, which can draw jail time, to infractions.

Officers made 14,000 arrests of homeless people in the city in 2016, a 31% increase over 2011, the Times analysis found. The rise came as LAPD arrests overall went down 15%. Two-thirds of those arrested were black or Latino, and the top five charges were for nonviolent or minor offenses. In 2011, 1 in 10 arrests citywide were of homeless people; in 2016, it was 1 in 6.

The problem of “quality of life” law enforcement is compounded by the financial penalties attached to infractions. California has enacted fees and assessments that make the state’s ticket penalties among the stiffest in the country, according to a study in May by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The base fine in L.A. for sleeping or lying on the sidewalk, for example, is $35, but fees take the total to $238. If that initial amount goes unpaid, an additional $300 “civil assessment” and other levies can be added, more than doubling the financial stakes.

A three-year study of a Florida mental health court program found that the rate of recidivism dropped “significantly” after participants completed the court-ordered treatment program that the court offered as an alternative to jail.

The study’s authors, Julie Costopoulos and Bethany Wellman of the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) suggested that the findings demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborative courts in helping end the “revolving door” which cycles many mentally troubled individuals between jail and the streets:

“The ‘revolving door’ has been exhaustive of institutional resources, resulting in such a poor system of treatment that many argue that the system …treats offenders with mental health challenges to the extent that recidivism is inevitable,”

The study followed 118 participants in an unidentified Florida mental health court. Three months after release, 90% had not been rearrested. After six months, the number dropped to 81% remaining free of any charges; and three years after release, 54% had not recidivated.

Perhaps almost as significant, the study found that participants were typically re-arrested  for much lesser offenses than those which originally sent them to the mental health court.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the LA Police Protective League has joined more than a dozen other police unions, including those in New York, San Jose and Chicago, asking for federal funding  for crisis-intervention training, less-lethal devices and officers who team up with mental health professionals to respond to emergency calls. The proposal, “Compassionate and Accountable Responses for Everyone,” will be formally unveiled at a news conference Thursday morning in New York. Most police department already offer some training in how to appropriately respond to someone who has mental health issues — LAPD officers receive 15 hours of training specific to mental health while in the academy — but the issue continues to draw attention, particularly after several high-profile police shootings of people who were diagnosed with mental illnesses. In New York, for example, a police sergeant was charged with second-degree murder after fatally shooting a mentally ill woman who had a baseball bat.

Louis Dekmar, the police chief in LaGrange, Ga., and first vice president of the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police, commented: “We’ve taken what should be a public health issue and we’ve turned it into a criminal issue. And the sad commentary is, of the 900 and some fatal police shootings a year, about 25% are affected by mental illness.”

In Los Angeles, four of the 28 people struck by police gunfire in 2016 showed signs of mental illness, according to LAPD data. The previous year, nearly a third of the 38 people shot by police were perceived to be mentally ill.

In Seattle, a pregnant woman with mental health issues was shot and killed by police after calling to report an attempted burglary, then “displaying” a knife when the police arrived.

Meanwhile, in Washington, the Supreme Court  agreed with a convicted murderer held on Alabama’s death row for three decades who argued he was entitled to an expert independent from prosecutors to gauge his mental health and possibly help him avoid execution.

The justices ruled 5-4 in favor of inmate James McWilliams, who was convicted of the 1984 rape and murder of a convenience store clerk in Tuscaloosa. It is the third recent case in which the Court has ruled in favor of a convicted inmate on death row, all involving African-Americans, a fact that civil rights advocates say points to problems in America’s criminal justice system that disproportionately affect minorities.

A new law in Texas, the “Sandra Bland Act” , requires jailers to immediately determine whether inmates suffer from mental illness and divert those who do to a mental health facility. The law is named after the Sandra Bland, who in 2015 was found dead in a Waller County jail cell after she was pulled over by a state trooper for a routine traffic stop, then arrested and jailed when the officer said she had become “uncooperative.” Her death was ruled a suicide, and later it became clear that Bland might have suffered from depression and had a history of mental health issues.