Campbell County diversion pilot steers low-level defendants with serious mental illness toward treatment

Campbell County is running a pilot diversion program that routes some low-level defendants with serious mental illness into court-supervised treatment instead of prolonged jail stays, judges and program staff told the Mental Health & Vulnerable Adult Task Force on Aug. 22.

The pilot is a pre‑conviction program that, presenters said, accepts people charged with nonviolent misdemeanors who have identifiable serious mental illness and who volunteer to participate. Judge Matt Castano, a district court judge in the Sixth Judicial District, described the program as designed to “provide these people that oversight and that service so that they can stabilize, so that they can become housed, so that they can become employed, and they can become members of the community.”

Task force members said the pilot is intended to reduce repeated jail use and related costs while improving health outcomes. Ben Burningham, chief legal officer for the Administrative Office of the Courts, told the task force the program allows early engagement with treatment and “gets folks into treatment engaged in the program early, before the…