The goal was to get help faster to non-violent offenders with mental illness. Instead, they are showing up again and again at the state hospital.

Moments after a state hospital employee knocked on the door and told him to put on a shirt, the 61-year-old stared wide-eyed at a small smart phone screen transmitting his image into courtroom 7D of Honolulu’s First District Court.

The homeless man with salt and pepper hair watched attentively as a judge explained that he had been found mentally unfit and couldn’t be prosecuted for the trespassing charge he’d been arrested for in August.

“You’ll be released today,” the judge said on Sept. 3. “I hope that you will take advantage of the services that you’re being directed to, so that hopefully we don’t see you back under these circumstances.”

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