As work began to demolish the former Davidson County Criminal justice Center, Sheriff Daron Hall shared plans to include a Mental Health Unit as the jail is rebuilt. He said they hope the unit will change how thousands of inmates are processed.
“You wouldn’t be booked, you wouldn’t be charged criminally,” Hall said. “You’d be brought to what really led you here, which was your illness, instead of criminalized. That’s our goal.”
A goal that will mean 64 beds open to people arrested for misdemeanor charges who are flagged during a mental health evaluation. The severely and persistently mentally ill and felony inmates would not continue to be housed in jail.
Hall said the low level offenders who would likely qualify for the unit are most commonly arrested for probation violation.
“Making probation is very difficult for someone who is not suffering from mental illness,” Hall said. “They have to report, pay fines, have a job; if you’re not on your medication and you’re mentally ill, you’re going to violate probation and get rearrested and rearrested.”
A cycle Hall hopes this center will begin to break.
Hall hopes the unit will eliminate locked doors, cell bars, and uniformed police officers. He wants the unit to feel like a treatment center, not a jail.
“We want the person being processed to feel that way, the environment to feel that way,” he said. “This won’t have jail doors and bars on it. Instead, we’re going to provide treatment and we’re going to hold you to that treatment.”
About $10 million from the project’s overall $113 million budget was set aside for the mental health unit, but Hall argued better treatment will reduce correctional costs over time.
He said long term success will rely on partnerships with outside care providers willing to help inmates after their release.
The center was expected to open in 2019.
