LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Lubbock County stakeholders are exploring whether a formal mental health diversion program could keep qualifying offenders out of jail and get them into treatment, according to officials and advocates who spoke with KCBD’s Investigates Team.
Other Texas counties have developed Assisted Outpatient Treatment programs — known as AOT programs— in which qualifying individuals receive mental health services overseen by a civil court judge instead of moving through the criminal justice system. Lubbock does not currently have such a program.
A personal connection to the issue
Brian Shannon, a law professor at Texas Tech, a member of the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health, and a board member at StarCare Specialty Health System, said the issue is personal to him.
“My younger brother, when he was a senior in college, unfortunately had his first bout with a psychiatric illness. Like many, he was 22, often strikes individuals, late teens, early 20s,” Shannon said…