INSIDE THE STRONG SOLUTIONS ROUNDTABLE: A NEW VISION FOR LOS ANGELES

Los Angeles is a county of contradictions. It contains some of the most advanced clinical institutions in the nation, yet it continues to allow untreated mental illness and addiction to overwhelm its streets, courts, and correctional facilities. It has world-class researchers, policymakers, and public-safety professionals, yet the systems built to translate their knowledge into action remain fragmented and politically sluggish. The Strong Solutions Roundtable was created as a direct response to this contradiction. It is a working session—not a panel, not a seminar, not a performative display of expertise—but a deliberate and disciplined gathering of people who understand that Los Angeles cannot continue operating in parallel universes where clinicians speak one language and the justice system speaks another.

Inside the Roundtable, the tone shifts immediately from the typical public-safety event. There is no grandstanding. There is no political choreography. The focus is on the mechanics of change, not the optics. Clinicians speak candidly about the realities of co-occurring disorders, the depth of trauma saturating the populations they serve, and the clinical limitations that arise when treatment agencies operate without meaningful coordination with law enforcement or the courts. Justice-system professionals offer insight into the operational pressures deputies and prosecutors face, the lack of reliable treatment placement options, and the procedural constraints that complicate diversion, alternative sentencing, or continuity of care. Community leaders add the perspective of lived experience, noting how neighborhoods feel the impact not only of crime but of untreated illness, chronic instability, and the repeating pattern of crisis without resolution.

There is an unmistakable energy in the room—one that comes from professionals finally being given the space to speak from expertise rather than from bureaucratic caution. Participants talk openly about the structural failures they encounter daily. Courts struggle to identify accurate clinical information at crucial decision-making moments. Law enforcement repeatedly engages with the same individuals in psychosis or addiction because the downstream system is unprepared to intervene effectively. Clinicians are asked to support people who cycle in and out of custody without consistent medication management, without access to long-term stabilization, and without the legal scaffolding necessary to break behavioral patterns that derive from trauma, neurological impairment, and survival instincts rather than criminal intent.

The rise of fentanyl adds urgency to the conversation. Clinicians describe the neurochemical devastation caused by synthetic opioids, the rapid onset of dependency, and the volatility that occurs when fentanyl interacts with untreated mental illness. Deputies describe the increasing frequency of field encounters where individuals are incoherent, hallucinatory, paranoid, or physically on the brink of collapse. The group examines how methamphetamine exacerbates agitation and psychosis, contributing to behaviors that appear aggressive but are deeply rooted in altered brain chemistry. The Roundtable treats these as clinical realities, not moral failures, and moves the conversation toward architecture—what should happen in the field, what should happen in court, and what should happen immediately after a crisis to break the pattern rather than reinforce it.

Throughout these discussions, a recurring theme emerges: the justice system in Los Angeles is carrying out responsibilities it was not designed for, while the clinical system is attempting to compensate for gaps it does not have the authority to control. The result is a county caught between two partial systems, neither capable of functioning fully without the other. It is precisely this systemic misalignment that the Strong Solutions Roundtable seeks to address. The goal is not to rewrite policy from scratch but to identify where operational seams must be closed, where clinical expertise must inform judicial discretion, and where law enforcement needs better tools and clearer protocols to intervene safely.

One of the most compelling parts of the Roundtable is its insistence on re-evaluating accountability. Participants reject the false dichotomy between compassion and enforcement. They emphasize that accountability is not synonymous with punishment; it is a structured process of transformation. Deputies and clinicians agree that individuals cannot be expected to adhere to conditions or court orders that do not account for the neurophysiology of addiction or the disruptive impact of untreated trauma. Judges discuss the challenges of balancing public safety with the practical reality that jail is not a stabilizing environment for most mentally ill defendants. Prosecutors and defenders engage with the idea that accountability must be gradual, stage-based, and clinically informed rather than binary or punitive. This shift mirrors the principles outlined in Modern Rehabilitation: A Criminological Architecture for Justice, which argues that relapse, instability, and clinical regression are not acts of defiance but predictable data points that must trigger structured responses, not sanctions that destabilize recovery.

The Roundtable does more than diagnose problems. It begins shaping a reform agenda grounded in measurable, realistic system design. Participants explore how to strengthen diversion pathways, enhance crisis-response partnerships, and expand the capacity of courts to integrate clinical information into sentencing and supervision decisions. They discuss how to build continuity of care from the point of field contact through courtroom proceedings and into long-term stabilization. They evaluate the potential for data systems that allow agencies to understand individual histories in context rather than responding blindly to isolated incidents. The vision that emerges is not naïve. It does not imagine that every person can be transformed through supportive intervention, nor does it dismiss the importance of community safety. Instead, it recognizes that a coherent, coordinated, clinically informed system produces better outcomes for individuals and safer conditions for the public.

The Strong Solutions Roundtable functions as a microcosm of what Los Angeles could create at scale. It demonstrates that when clinical and justice professionals operate in the same intellectual space—when they listen to one another, learn from one another, and challenge outdated assumptions—new solutions emerge that neither system could produce independently. It also highlights the role of leadership in bridging the divide. Without leaders who understand both the operational and clinical dimensions of the crisis, reform becomes fragmented, under-resourced, or politically diluted. With the right leadership, however, Los Angeles could shift from a crisis-management model to an integrated architecture where treatment, accountability, and public safety reinforce each other rather than compete.

The urgency is unmistakable. Los Angeles cannot continue relying on an accidental behavioral-health system held together by overextended deputies, exhausted clinicians, and courtrooms that toggle between punishment and frustration. What the county needs is exactly what the Roundtable embodies: informed, collaborative action grounded in expertise rather than rhetoric. Stronger leadership begins not with louder arguments but with smarter conversations, and the Strong Solutions Roundtable marks a turning point in that direction.

The participants leave the table not with slogans, but with clarity. They leave with the recognition that Los Angeles has the talent, the knowledge, and the courage to modernize its justice architecture—what it needs is alignment, design, and leadership. The Roundtable represents that emerging blueprint, one rooted in evidence, experience, and the shared belief that the county can no longer afford to treat mental health and justice reform as separate agendas. They are and always have been the same problem—and they require the same coordinated solution.