A better answer to rising incarceration might start with a monthly shot. Judge Robert Herzfeld joins us to explore how long-acting injectables, smarter diversion, and targeted accountability can keep people stable, families intact, and courts focused on real public safety. We talk through the practical side of reform: why medication adherence collapses for people in crisis, how LAIs remove daily barriers, and what changed when mental health coverage no longer vanished with a job or an insurance switch. The result isn’t theory—it’s fewer repeat civil commitments and fewer chaotic encounters that spiral into charges.

From the bench, options are narrower than many think. Judges can order competency evaluations and consider clinical facts, but they cannot unilaterally convert prosecutions into treatment. That’s where prosecutors and defense counsel matter, weighing harm, victim needs, and credible care plans. We break down drug courts—structured treatment, frequent testing, swift sanctions—and why they work best with strong community ties. Then we dig into mental health courts, where progress can’t be verified by a swab and stability rises and falls over months, not minutes.

The most promising lever may come before any arrest. Regional crisis centers give officers a place to bring someone in obvious distress for rapid evaluation, medication, and stabilization—no booking, no record, just a bridge back to outpatient care. Arkansas is testing this approach, and while funding gaps and policy friction shuttered one center, the model points the way: cross‑agency buy‑in, transparent data on recidivism and ER use, and sustained leadership to outlast election cycles. Judge Herzfeld’s bottom line is hopeful and hard‑nosed: earlier care, clear accountability, and tools that actually fit the problem. If your city wants fewer jail beds and safer streets, start with treatment that works and pilots you can measure.

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