Dallas County officials spent part of last week learning about Miami-Dade County's successful jail diversion program to determine whether modeling it could reduce jail crowding here.
Retired Florida judge Steve Leifman, the creator of Miami-Dade diversion program, led a days-long summit in Dallas to explain how it could work here. Leifman and his team were invited to present the successful 26-year old Criminal Mental Health Project model as a less-expensive alternative to sending Dallas County officials and staff to Florida.
A key element of the Miami-Dade model is how people experiencing mental health issues are handled by law enforcement, jails and courts.
Leifman and other county leaders who implemented the project eventually were able to get Florida laws changed so that people in mental health crisis could be held in deflection centers involuntarily.
That offers time for evaluation, court processing and possibly starting substance use and mental health treatment.
In Texas, law enforcement agencies like the Dallas Police Department and DART police must convince a person to go to a deflection center — and stay there — before going to jail.
If a detained person is taken to Dallas’s one jail-diversion center, they are free to leave almost immediately.
Laws passed in Ohio and Florida changed that.
“They set up a situation where for 48 hours, the person's not free to go,” Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins said. “Then, within that 48 hours, that person is assessed to see whether they can go or what the next steps would be. That's really not much different except for it's focused on mental health and good outcomes of what happens when we pick up your average person.”
Convincing Texas legislators to pass similar laws here would be a key first step to effectively apply the Miami-Dade process to the Dallas County jail and courts system.
The next legislative session begins in January. Proposed bills can be filed beginning Nov. 9 — six days after mid-term elections.
Employees across county departments — including the Sheriff's Office, District Attorney's office, judges, jail staff, law enforcement and budget teams gathered with partner organizations like Homeward Bound and the North Texas Behavioral Authority to discuss cooperative ideas based on the Miami-Dade model.
Most agreed that Dallas County already has many of the Miami-approach elements — and often practices much of the same processes. Texas laws, though, were the biggest factor that could determine whether interdepartmental cooperation could happen here.
Discussions included descriptions of how a district attorney’s office is a key piece for success. District Attorney-Elect Judge Amber Givens was among Dallas County officials who attended. Jenkins and commissioners Theresa Daniel and Andy Sommerman also participated. County Administrator Darryl Martin helped plan and host each day’s workshops and led the effort to bring the discussions to Dallas.
Commissioner John Wiley Price, well-known for his consistent involvement in making jail operation adhere to state laws and requirements, was notably absent.
“I'm not a supporter,” he said. “I said that publicly and I looked and we vetted the Miami model and we couldn't find anything that they had that we don't have already in place — except legislation.”
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