Nancy White

It has been a long time since I have contributed to the ACA Blog. Corrections Behavioral Health is busy during the spring and early summer months.

As I sit at my desk, the day before Thanksgiving, the start of the holiday season, I think of all the things in my life that I am most thankful for. Included in my thoughts is the fact that I am not incarcerated. Not that I have ever done anything to be incarcerated for, but after working in the criminal justice system for over 30 years, the fact that I can go home to my own life after work, is something that I am very thankful for.

It seems like when the “day goes wrong” in the criminal justice system, it really goes wrong. I have been spending a great deal of time thinking about just how to write this blog. Then I realized I had been thinking about it for a month, and it is just time to write.

I have blogged in the past, about Mental Health Court and the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) program. I recently had the honor to meet and hear speak a “true champion” for the cause, The Honorable Mark A. Speiser, Judge in Fort Lauderdale, Broward County, Florida.

I live in the Midwest (Missouri) and have been enduring over 100 degree weather now for too many days. Not only am I unmotivated, but all my outdoor plants have died. My yard has a few weeds and my grass lies dormant. Snow has never sounded so good. In the middle of this horribly hot summer I have had an experience that I will never forget. A mentally ill client, with legal problems herself, has become a victim of a horrendous crime. She opened the front door to her apartment in the middle of the night and was brutally beaten and raped.