A Court of Refuge: Stories from the Bench of America's First by GINGER LERNER-WREN,Rebecca A. Eckland

As a tender legal professional, pass judgement on Ginger Lerner-Wren bore witness to the implications of an underdeveloped psychological overall healthiness care infrastructure. not able to do greater than provide counsel, she watched households being torn aside as buyer after purchaser used to be ensnared within the felony justice process for crimes devoted due to dependancy, homelessness, and critical psychological disorder. She quickly realized that this used to be now not an remoted issue--The remedy Advocacy middle estimates that during forty four states, jails and prisons condominium ten instances as many of us with severe psychological health problems than country psychiatric hospitals.

In psychological wellbeing and fitness Courts, pass judgement on Lerner-Wren tells the tale of ways the court docket grew from an offshoot of her legal department held in the course of lunch hour with no the help of any federal investment, to a innovative establishment that has effectively diverted greater than 17,000 individuals with severe psychological affliction from reformatory and into remedy amenities and different neighborhood assets. operating lower than the theoretical framework of healing jurisprudence, pass judgement on Wren and her becoming community of fierce, made up our minds advocates, households, and supporters sparked a countrywide flow of utilizing courts as a spot of healing.

Poignant and sharp, Lerner-Wren demonstrates that notwithstanding psychological wellbeing and fitness courts supply a few aid in underserved groups, they could basically function a unmarried piece of a brand new specialize in the monstrous overhaul of the rules that received us right here. Lerner-Wren crafts a clean hazard for a destiny the place our felony method and psychological wellbeing and fitness infrastructure paintings in step to decriminalize instead of stigmatize.