Guest Commentary: Because we lack proper mental health care services in our community, Santa Barbara County jails are often used as a last resort to house people with mental illness.
Guest Commentary: Because we lack proper mental health care services in our community, Santa Barbara County jails are often used as a last resort to house people with mental illness.
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By Jade Martinez-Pogue, Noozhawk Staff Writer | @MartinezPogue
July 15, 2021
| 6:33 p.m.
As part of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors call for collective efforts to improve the criminal justice system in the county, the District Attorney’s Office and the Probation Department presented additional diversion efforts and developments of a data dashboard at Tuesday’s board meeting.
Sherill Ellsworth, a retired presiding judge from the Superior Court of Riverside County, has been assisting the Santa Barbara County Executive Office as a consultant for the efforts and began the presentation by talking about some diversion efforts that have been made.
“These past several months, we have been brave enough to try lots of things,” Ellsworth said. “Among those things are some small but very important decisions that have been made and some collaboration that has taken place.”