PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. — Local 10 News This Week In South Florida Anchor Glenna Milberg interviewed Steve Leifman on Sunday about the commission not supporting his push to change the treatment of inmates who are not dangerous and suffer from serious mental illnesses.
The U.S. Supreme Court recognized Leifman as a leader in mental health and criminal justice reform. He served as a Miami-Dade County Circuit judge in the criminal division for three decades, founded the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Criminal Mental Health Project, and launched a law enforcement training program.
Despite the recognition, Leifman said Miami-Dade commissioners didn’t stand behind his vision of The Miami Center for Mental Health and Recovery, an empty seven-story facility that he is ready to put to use.
“It saves money, it significantly improves public safety, it saves taxpayers’ dollars, it will probably eliminate homelessness in Dade County, and it helps people get into recovery and have a life of hope and opportunity,” Leifman told Milberg.
The commissioners were not around when the project started. Leifman said, they do not “appreciate necessarily the context in which this was done: Why it’s so important, how much money it’s going to save, how much money we are saving.
“We are spending $570 million a year -- just in jail for 4,000 people.”
Leifman said the court regularly receives a list of jail inmates who are considered eligible for the diversion program to “break the cycle,” and bill Medicaid for mental health services, and not the county.
“These are people based on charge, based on their prior offenses, and based on their illness. We identified 16,400 people over the last five years. They spent 1.2 million days in the Dade County jail, cost taxpayers $414 million, and they all got released,” Leifman said.
The first two and a half years, the program comes at “a zero cost” to the county because the funds come from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and the Florida opioid settlement, according to Leifman.
“It’s costing the county between $5 and $7 million a year to keep it closed,” Leifman said. “And when they pass this, that actually comes from off the budget immediately. We use those other dollars to pay, so there is an immediate savings.”
Leifman said commissioners will get to vote again in two and a half years, and the University of Miami researchers are going to study the system to tell the county if it’s working or not.
“The city of Miami federal dollars that they gave us literally expires this August, but it has to be spent by August,” Leifman said. “We don’t have until August to start. We have to get it on the agenda now, or we are going to actually lose those dollars.”
Leifman asked the public to contact their Miami-Dade County commissioners. The commission’s next
“Ask them to please put it on the agenda, so we can get this done, improve our public safety, and save a lot of money,” Leifman said.
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