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SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - Supporting the creation of a homeless court is listed among the 2024 legislative priorities for the Savannah City Council.
Officials say homeless courts have been implemented in communities across the nation and serve as a diversion court for low level misdemeanor offences. Assistant Chief of Police for Savannah, Robert Gavin described them as quality-of-life crimes.
“Things from aggressive panhandling, begging from the medians and roadways indecent exposure those types of crimes, trespass continued, going into stores, shops or hanging in front of places, what the homeless court allows for is instead of taking this to recorders court or the state court it brings them into those services and looks at getting them the mental health-- it has all of those offering to them and they don’t have to take part in it but they are held accountable and given those opportunities,” said Assistant Chief Robert Gavin, Savannah Police Department.
The program would combine “a plea bargain system, assurance of “no custody”, alternative sentencing, and activities to address certain criminal offenses.”
“For people who may be experiencing homelessness, instead of getting papered or picked up and wasting a lot of resource from the public safety side, with not a whole lot of advancement or outcomes for that person is essentially a diversion court that uses the justice system in order to connect people with better services that are going to provide better outcomes,” said Jay Melder, Savannah City Manager.
“To the extent we can get cases resolved more efficiently more effectively and in a way that leads to hopefully leads to those persons not reoffending, I think it is a win for everyone,” said Superior Court Judge Lisa Colbert, Chatham County.
Assistant Police Chief Gavin says they are planning to go out to San Diego where homeless court programs already exist to get a better understanding of what implementation would look like.
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November 23, 2023 at 04:15AM
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City of Savannah proposing creation of a homeless court - WTOC
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