A lawmaker from Mercer County believes people with mental illnesses are better off participating in rehab programs than languishing behind bars - and so is the society they live in.

Shirley Turner's logic is both practical and humane.

"If people go into a jail cell with mental illness, they come out of the jail with mental illness," reasons state Sen. Shirley Turner.

The longtime Democratic legislator is sponsoring a comprehensive measure that would divert nonviolent offenders with mental illness away from the state's criminal justice system and into a program aimed at treating their disorder.

Turner envisions training police officers and other law-enforcement officers in crisis-intervention techniques to cut down on the number of people with mental illness who are arrested.

And the number is astonishing.

A coalition called the Stepping Up Initiative, which advocates for reforms in criminal justice approaches toward those with mental illness, estimates that 2 million individuals in that category are jailed each year across the nation.

Turner's office cites federal data indicating that more than half the men and nearly three-quarters of the women incarcerated in this country have a mental illness. Nearly one in four has been jailed three times or more.

Her proposed legislation would create a process to help the courts identify and assist perpetrators who stand to benefit from behavioral-health services, as well as facilitate coordination among the state's mental-health officials and those involved in the criminal justice system.

Turner likens the approach to the drug courts that have had much success in New Jersey by providing an alternative to incarceration via treatment and rehabilitation to non-violent offenders. Eligible participants are required to attend therapy sessions, undergo random drug testing and meet with their probation officers.

Since 2002, the initiative has "graduated" more than 5,000 men and women, many of whom have found jobs and obtained drivers licenses.

Former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, himself a recovering addict, is an outspoken supporter of recovery programs.

The New Jersey resident noted in a letter posted on the website of the National Alliance on Mental Illness that after the court system in Miami-Dade County in Florida launched a mental-health diversion program in 2000, the county was able to close an entire jail.

Savings to the taxpayers: $12 million a year. Recidivism rates for program participants: down from 75 percent to 20 percent.

Many of the details of Turner's plan have still to be worked out, but common sense tells us that rehabilitating people with mental illness rather than locking them up is not only more compassionate, but also more effective.

Let's hope it gets the same reception from her colleagues in the Legislature.

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