etite, with thick-framed glasses and short, stylish hair, Judge Desiree Charbonnet has an upbeat, officious manner appropriate for someone who presides over a courtroom. During her eight years on the bench, she has cultivated efficiency to deal with the thousands of cases that land in her court. But recently, the judge has had more empathy toward those who appear before her. She has taken the time to learn more about certain types of repeat defendants, including those charged with prostitution or who have mental illness and substance use issues, to better understand not how to sentence them, but what approaches might keep them out of the criminal justice system—rather than on an endless cycle in and out of jail.
This shift is in part about recognizing the humanity in people who appear in her court, but also about getting better results. When it comes to nonviolent misdemeanors, many studies show that high incarceration rates for those charges “have really not done anything for public safety,” Judge Charbonnet says. Jail time does not effectively deter certain crimes rooted in social issues like addiction, poverty or mental illness. The judge has been a front-row witness to cycles of arrest, missed court dates, unpaid fines and fees, and incarceration that lead many individuals to appear before her time after time.
Responding to this, New Orleans courts, like many others around the country, are shifting away from incarcerating people charged with nonviolent offenses. But to take root, this shift requires a significant change in thinking, and that mind-set is hard to come by in the daily grind of a municipal court already bogged down with enormous caseloads.
A major part of this shift is something called diversion court. It’s a concept that diverts defendants who meet specific eligibility requirements away from the criminal justice system and toward supportive services to help curb the underlying problems or behaviors. As part of the process, defendants’ charges may be dismissed.
Judge Charbonnet first got involved in creating new diversion court programs as part of the New Orleans task force of the American Bar Association’s Racial Justice Improvement Project. The group’s members believe that diversion programs have “a profound racial impact by ensuring more minorities are diverted from the system.”
Judge Charbonnet led the charge to start a diversion court for mental illness in 2014, partnering with the city’s health department for a two-year pilot. She had seen the city’s mentally ill repeatedly arrested and incarcerated on nonviolent offenses, then caught in a cycle of missed court dates or unpaid fines and fees that led to more arrests and jail time.
“Jail is not the right place for the mentally ill, clearly,” she says.
But Judge Charbonnet’s court didn’t have the resources to connect people with social services, get them into treatment programs, or follow up with caregivers or social agencies that could keep these defendants out of the criminal justice system. Two new federal grants helped create the Community Alternatives Program to help with that. Defendants are referred by their public defenders, then a screener and a system of service providers step in to assess each individual’s eligibility and connect people with whatever they might need—from getting into treatment or on medication to being connected with Medicaid coverage or housing.
Long-term funding remains unclear, but the Community Alternatives Program could pay for itself in savings to the public, Judge Charbonnet told the New Orleans City Council. “When you look at that one person with 20 arrests a year, taking that one person out of the system makes a huge difference,” she says.