Cowlitz County officials are about to take their first step toward establishing a mental health court to help mentally ill offenders, District Court Judge Michael Evans said late last week.

Evans said the county will apply for a $50,000 U.S. Department of Justice grant this month. The money would be used to hire a consultant to study solutions to the county’s problems with mentally ill offenders, including the possibility of a mental health court.

A mental health court would be designed to handle offenders who bounce in and out of the justice system because they aren’t being treated for mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Instead of jail, the program would place mentally ill offenders in treatment programs, much like the county’s Drug Court program does. As long as offenders stick with the program, including taking their medication, their sentences could be waived, said Evans, who has been championing the idea since before he was appointed to the bench late last year.

The program would be run by the District Court and handle mostly misdemeanor offenses, Evans said. It would ease crowding in the jail, reduce recidivism and prevent property crime, he said. Evans said it also could save money by keeping repeat offenders out of the justice system.

“I think it’s a great idea,” said Terance Arakaki, a counselor at the Cowlitz County Jail, who estimates 60 percent of the jail population have some kind of diagnosable mental health problem. Anything that would help them, he said, seems worthwhile.

“I think we’ve got to at least try it,” Arakaki said. “If we have an opportunity, we should take it.”

Still, he said, the program can’t solve all of the county’s problems with mentally ill offenders. Some are so sick, Arakaki said, they won’t be able to keep their treatment appointments or maintain a medication regimen. “So that’s the frustrating part,” he said.

Karyl Ramsey, the interim supervisor of a similar mental health court in Clark County, said about 75 percent of that program’s graduates don’t reoffend and that 90 percent of participants with four or more past arrests offend less often or not at all after receiving treatment.

In addition, Ramsey said, the recidivism rate among the court’s participants dropped nearly 400 percent. A description of the program on Clark County’s Web site said nearly 300 people had participated in the court since it started in April 2000.

Evans and a group of prosecutors, police, mental health professionals and attorneys visited Clark County earlier this month to see how the program works.

The Cowlitz County program, Evans said, would probably involve a mental health coordinator who would screen cases with a committee made up of a treatment provider, prosecutor and defense attorney. If the offender qualified, he or she would go into a treatment program in lieu of serving jail time or paying fines. A judge would monitor the offender’s progress.

Details are sketchy, but the program could handle about 40 people at a time, Evans said. Its primary cost would be the salary of a coordinator, which he estimated would be between $40,000 and $60,000 each year.

But, as the economy continues to crash, Evans said, it may be difficult to convince the public that funding the program would save money in the long run.

“We may get this planning grant and it may end up that the county commissioners can’t fund it,” Evans said.