LA Health Services’ Misdemeanor Incompetent to Stand Trial (MIST) program helps people transition from jail to community-based housing and clinical care. The program serves people facing misdemeanor charges who have been found incompetent to stand trial, with placements matched to their individual clinical needs.
Watch the video to learn more about the program.
MIST Video Transcript
0:01 – [Music]
0:06 – About the MIST program
The MIST program is a Misdemeanor Incompetent to Stand Trial program. We collaboratively work with LA County courts to accept all misdemeanor cases of people who are found incompetent to stand trial.
And this program is designed to pull people out of jail who have a serious and persistent mental illness and who are in jail because they’ve committed some sort of misdemeanor crime, are not getting the best treatment in jail, they’re not getting the medications they need, they’re not getting the services they need.
So, ODR was created to pull those clients out of the jail, put them into community-based housing such as ours, and that way they were able to get those wraparound services that can provide clinical services, psychiatric care, case management, recovery services, substance use treatment to improve their overall quality of life.
0:57 – A participant’s experience
The MIST program actually really helped me. I have what you call late kindling bipolar disorder. And so they’re the ones that actually, with their help and the doctors, identified and diagnosed me with this.
And so I got properly medicated, and now I’m pretty much stable with my mental health, and they’re really integral in me getting to that point.
1:18 – Diversion and court orders
Our clients are all here because they are eligible for some sort of diversion program. And so what makes them eligible is they have allegedly committed a certain type of crime and then also have this serious and persistent mental illness.
So, the diversion part of the program puts them into these community-based housing programs where, if they are able to comply with the rules of the court order, then they get to stay in this program in the community. They don’t have to be incarcerated while they’re serving their times.
And eventually, their charges will either get dismissed or their records will be sealed depending on the type of program that they’re in.
1:48 – The purpose of community-based care
Our purpose of these programs in ODR is to meet the needs of clients who find themselves in jail for different reasons, usually crimes of survival, usually for unmet public health needs that incarceration is not treating and we see doesn’t work.
What does work is diverting clients into the community with a team that cares and supports them and provides a multitude of services that will follow them for a lifetime.
2:22 – Individualized care
Our clients are very complex, and because of that we really have to individualize care to each of them. They might have a lot of medical conditions. They might have a developmental disability. They might have post-traumatic stress disorder. They might have a substance use problem.
And so all of those things create a lot of different barriers depending on the client.
2:41 – Medication and community integration
In the MIST program, we have about 70% of clients in the community on long-acting injections, which is 30 days’ worth of medication in one injection.
And research shows that clients on LAIs have increased medication compliance and successfully integrate into society.
2:59 – Returning to family and daily life
Well, my aspirations are just to go back to the life I was leading before, before MIST. I was 47 years old. Being incarcerated for the very first time is probably later than usual.
So, it’s really just trying to get back to my family, and it’s really just trying to get me back on track to where I was before.
3:17 – Care first, jails last
I think that ODR does a great job at aligning with LA County’s care first, jails last commitment and being surrounded with a team that supports and cares about your success and your quality of life, because really jail should be last, and we do care.
3:38 – [Music]