Nebraska lawmakers raise ideas to expand problem-solving courts

LINCOLN, Neb. (WOWT) - Nebraska lawmakers look to tackle the staggering cost of locking up criminals. The idea is to expand the state’s problem-solving courts but it takes people and money.

Nebraska’s first problem-solving court began 25 years ago and has slowly expanded.

Here’s the list of what’s available today and not every judicial district offers all of these:

• Drug courts for adults, juveniles, and families to DUI court
• Mental health court
• Veterans treatment court
• Young adult court

No one argues these types of courts are much cheaper than sending someone to prison and experts say they do a better job at getting to the root of what got them arrested in the first place and keeping it from happening again.

But many lawmakers argue not enough Nebraskans are going through the programs. Nebraska district court judges volunteer for problem-solving courts.

A system designed to address the root of the problem for the suspect without sending them to prison. It’s a steady commitment for the judge with an already busy schedule of trials and hearings.

“Judges do a lot of challenging things on their job when they get the opportunity to see positives, they enjoy that,” said Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Funke.

Experts testified before the judiciary committee offering potential solutions Tuesday morning in Lincoln. Last year, 4% of felony arrests took part in problem-solving courts.

Experts believe Nebraska should be around 10%.

One idea to more than double the number of participants would be to allow county judges to handle some of the early caseloads. Lawmakers also understand that if you do that, you also need to have more mental health resources available and additional staffing and attorneys to take on the extra work.

“We started with 20 different options of how do you do that. Maybe not use district court judges or only use them for the penalty phase, have referees or magistrates, add additional judges. I’m not sure we have settled on that yet,” said Lancaster District Court Judge Robert Otte.

Bottom line, lawmakers, judges, and taxpayers understand the cost savings and benefits to society of problem-solving courts. At a time of overcrowded Nebraska prisons, studies show someone who goes through one of thse courts costs an average of $3,000 a person to taxpayers.

Prison for one inmate for a year costs more than 10 times that.

Some senators are hopeful that a bill could be introduced on expanding problem-solving courts, sometime after the first of the year.

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