Biggest needs of Nevadans on probation? Mental health services, people who care
Rachel Palmer said it was efforts to self-medicate that plunged her in a cycle of jail, probation, probation violations and jail again. She had been diagnosed relatively late in life with attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and bipolar disorder.
But she recently graduated from the parole and probation division’s new Day Reporting Center program, and last Thursday, she was celebrating 156 days of sobriety alongside her probation officer, Gianna Griffin. Together, they’re working to ensure that Palmer stays clean and starts taking her next steps toward independence, including getting a job and finding her own place.
“This is her first crime, her first big thing … her first gross misdemeanor,” Griffin said at a recording of the IndyMatters podcast. “It doesn’t make her this lifelong criminal. People make mistakes. She was in an addiction, she committed a crime. It doesn’t mean she has to be treated like she’s the worst person in the world. Let’s help her get her life back in order so she doesn’t become a felon.”
These types of second and third chances are standard at the parole division, which has shifted direction in recent years to focus more on rehabilitating the people it supervises instead of just checking compliance and sending them back to jail for violations. The Legislature supported those changes with investments last year in new types of programming.
Read more: https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/biggest-needs-of-nevadans-on-probation-mental-health-services-people-who-care