An experimental court for mentally ill defendants opens today in Brooklyn.

Operating as a pilot project since March, the Brooklyn Mental Health Court primarily handles mentally ill non-violent offenders, using treatment instead of jail as sentences. Many of the defendants have "persistent mental diseases like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. "

The Court's goal is to keep these offenders from "passing through the system repeatedly or from committing a more violent offense."

Judge Jonathan Lippman, the chief administrative judge of New York State courts, has said that up to one-fourth of all defendants in Brooklyn suffer from "a serious psychiatric disorder."

Here's how the Court works:

"The district attorney's office must approve switching a case to the special court, and then the defendant must undergo detailed psychological assessment and agree to plead guilty to the crime that is charged."

"In lieu of incarceration, such a plaintiff would receive time in a mental health center and would have to agree to frequent appearances in front of the judge or court managers. If the offender fails to meet his obligations, the court could sanction and even eventually incarcerate him."

The Court is similar to drug and domestic violence courts, and is supported by both prosecutors and defense counsel. Judge Matthew J. D'Emic is the presiding judge.

This is an excellent program. The criminal justice system is simply not equipped to deal with the vast number of mentally ill defendants. There are not enough treatment options in prison. When all we do is warehouse the mentally ill during incarceration, they leave prison even less capable of functioning on the outside than they were when they went in. Prison becomes a revolving door and violent tendencies emerge and escalate. By connecting the defendants to treatment programs on the outside instead of locking them up, we may be able to break the cycle and restore some semblance of normalcy and productiveness to their lives--which should in turn make our communities safer for everyone.