The Evidence for Alternatives to Incarceration

A broken mind is the worst kind of prison. Many mentally ill offenders don't just face lengthy terms behind iron bars. They also experience years of imprisonment in a mind wracked with disease. An ill man named Nathaniel, who cycled through New York's prison system for 15 years without receiving treatment, knew the despair of these two kinds of bondage. His namesake, the Nathaniel Project, now seeks to deliver offenders like him from both.

The Nathaniel Project is an alternative to incarceration program in New York City for mentally ill, prison-bound felons. In 1999, New York's Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services (CASES) fully launched the project. Staff members ask judges to divert eligible defendants to their care for a two year probationary period. If clients complete the Nathaniel Project's mental health treatment regimen, their conviction is waived. If they drop out, they face lengthy incarceration. The Project connects people to psychiatric services, accompanies them to medical appointments and court reporting visits, provides intensive counseling, and offers residential placement.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National GAINS Center has praised the Nathaniel Project for meeting its four measures of success: public safety, retention, treatment, and housing. In 2005, the GAINS center reported that arrests among Project participants dropped from 101 in the year before intake to 7 in the year after intake. The program has had an 80% retention rate, placed all of its members in mental health treatment, and helped 79% of its clients find permanent housing. Reflecting on an additional benefit of the program's approach, a 2002 issue of Psychiatric Services states that yearly costs per participant are over $10,000 less than the cost of a year in state prison. The Project's methods are model keys to success for similar attempts around the country. And, they represent keys to freedom for mentally ill offenders in chains.

For more information on alternatives to incarceration for mentally ill offenders, visit Justice Fellowship's Sentencing Reform and Overcriminalization pages and its Mental Health in Prisons page.