As National Mental Health Awareness Month continues, Harris County officials shared new data on how the local justice system is tackling mental health challenges behind bars.
Harris County District Attorney Sean Teare held a news conference Thursday morning to outline progress and new programs aimed at reducing the county’s jail population and getting people into treatment instead of incarceration.
The event, held at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, included updates on initiatives designed to divert individuals with mental health disorders into treatment services. According to the DA’s office, more than 340 people have been transferred to those services since Jan. 1.
Currently, about 80% of inmates in the Harris County Jail report symptoms of a mental health disorder, and one-third are prescribed psychotropic medications.
Teare called those numbers “the ultimate crime driver” and stressed that a jail cell is not a place to treat, help, or let people recover from mental illness or addiction.
Thanks to a $7.8 million emergency budget increase from Harris County Commissioners Court, $3 million of which is going to the new Mental Health and Diversions Bureau, the DA’s office has begun hiring more than 15 additional prosecutors, healthcare workers, and social workers to help address the crisis. The bureau is also staffing a full-time position at the Joint Processing Center to help identify individuals in crisis at intake and divert them into treatment.
Teare noted that since January, more than 340 people have been diverted from incarceration into mental health treatment programs. He also announced that the Harris County Jail population has dropped by about 9% since its peak in early February, falling from 9,905 inmates to 8,961 as of Thursday morning.
Officials said this reduction is saving taxpayers money by decreasing the need to outsource inmates to private prisons in other states, a move that has cost the county $54 million a year.
Teare credited the work of prosecutors, judges, and specialty courts, including mental health, drug, and veterans courts, for helping to manage the jail population. He emphasized the importance of tackling the court backlog by trying cases, which has also contributed to the population drop.
“This is personal for me,” Teare said, sharing the story of his mother’s battle with addiction and untreated mental illness when he was a teenager. “I can only begin to think about how her outcomes could have changed if she had come into contact with a system that recognized mental health and addiction as diseases instead of something to just warehouse and throw human beings away.”
Other speakers included Commissioners Lesley Briones and Adrian Garcia, Wayne Young of The Harris Center for Mental Health, and Chief Deputy Tommy Diaz of the Harris County Sheriff’s Office.
Teare also honored law enforcement officers the county has lost this year to mental health struggles and encouraged the community to continue breaking the stigma around seeking help.