Judge Steven Leifman Advocates For the Mentally Ill

"When I became a judge I had no idea that I was becoming a gatekeeper to the largest psychiatric facility in the state of Florida - the Miami-Dade Jail," said Miami-Dade County Judge Steven Leifman, keynote speaker at the H-PIS Special Session and Luncheon. Since April 2007, Leifman has served as special advisor on criminal justice and mental health for the Florida Supreme Court.

Leifman began his address by sharing The Forgotten Floor, a video that was filmed by local Miami-Dade media in 2006. It highlighted some of the challenges faced by the Miami-Dade Jail in dealing with mentally ill offenders and the unfavorable conditions that these offenders lived in at the time of their convictions. Although the video was disturbing in spots, Leifman noted that "If we don't look at what is really going on out there we will never be able to fix it." He said the video was an example of the difficult and complex problems facing the justice system.

Leifman stressed the need to decrease inappropriate and costly involvement of people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system by increasing access to comprehensive and cost-effective community-based services that target specialized treatment needs.