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NATACHA PISARENKO, Associated Press Wooden arrows show the distances to various cities near Chile's Escudero station on King George Island, Antarctica, on Jan. 20. Thousands of scientists come to Antarctica for research.

Antarctica holds key to mankind's future

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DAILY H ER A L D www.heraldextra.com Saturday, February 21, 2015

Earth's wildest, most desolate continent holds clues to humans' past and future

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Court, mental health court is an opportunity for those who take a plea in abeyance to receive treatment for mental issues and to essentially prove to the courts that after treatment, they are mentally able to function without performing crimes again.

A plea in abeyance is an agreement between the defendant and the court that the court will dismiss charges should criteria be met. In this case, Romney said defendants will receive treatment, counseling, therapy and participate in bi-weekly meetings with other participants in the mental health court.

"It's really inspiring;' Romney said. "It's nice to see them have such a good rela-tionship with us."

Provo is unique in that it is one of few cities in Utah to have its own mental health court. In fact, it may be the only mental health court in a city justice court in the state, Romney said. He said the Provo community benefits greatly from having its own mental health court.

The big difference between the Justice Court mental health court and the District Court mental health court is, according to Romney, early treatment. If the crime isn't severe enough and it occurs within Provo, then it's handled by the city mental health court. But if it's more severe or if it occurs outside of Provo, then Judge Fred Howard and the Fourth Dis-trict mental health court take care of it.

On first glance, mental health court sounds like it would be filled with people who have severe mental issues such as schizophrenia or paranoia. But most of the time, the mental health issue in question is somewhat less severe, such as bipo-lar disorder.

"The term might suggest they are incompetent and that they are a serious risk to our community," Howard said. "These are people who suffer some mental handicap, but their mental deficiency is manageable if given the right resources and tools, which the court is designed to provide."

At a typical mental health proceeding, defendants appear before the judge and report on their therapy progress. If participants miss therapy or relapse, there are possibilities of disciplinary action, ranging anywhere from writing a formal essay to serving a few days in jail.

"For folks in mental health court, it's not an easy way out;' said Dr. Juergen Korbanka, executive director of Wasatch Mental Health. "It's actually a longer inter-vention than what their sentence may have been."

But for those who do suc-ceed, about 80 percent of the participants according to Korbanka, the judges and

all in attendance applaud the success of the defen-dants as they graduate from mental court and their charges are expunged.

"Somebody who's a graduate is more likely to be compliant to therapy in the future," he said.

Korbanka has been work-ing with the Provo mental health court since its inception in 2004. He said mental health court has had a tremendous success in the past decade in treating defendants and preventing criminals from relapsing.

According to data col-lected from Wasatch Mental Health, the Utah County Jail has had 61 percent fewer jail bed days since the mental health court has been in place in both the district and the city. Additionally, the average cost of provid-ing inmates with a bed has dropped from $102,753 to well under $40,000, mean-ing less money needed to go to the jail.

Korbanka said he can't jump to conclusions and say the dramatic decreases are resulting directly from men-tal health court.

"But the numbers don't lie," he said.

Howard has been impressed given the short time the mental health court has been in Provo and in the district.

"It's a positive reflection of our community and our judicial system in trying to make efforts to look to other resources ... to respond to community problems, instead of simply sanction-ing a person with a jail term," he said. "We're trying to provide other resources that will help them get out of the cycle."

Howard agreed with Korbanka that the statistics are a clear indication that something is working with respect to the success of the mental health court.

The idea, in his view, is an innovative way to help fight criminal issues.

"To the extent we can do this, this is a great advance-ment," he said.

Romney said he wanted to make sure attorneys and the public as a whole are aware the mental health court is a viable option for defendants in the district, but especially in Provo.

"It works;' he said. "It exists and it works."

Korbanka hopes the suc-cess seen in the mental health courts will con-tinue in the future as the program continues in the legal system.

"It's a win-win-win;' he said. "It's better for the individual, it's better for the community because the community's safer, and it's better for the criminal justice system because they're not resurfacing. "

, Kurt Hanson is the Breaking News and Courts reporter for the Daily Herald. He can be reached at (801) 344-2560 or khanson@heraldextra. corn. Follow him on Twitter: @ hansonherald.

Luis Andres Henao and Seth Borenstein ASSOCIATED PRESS

DECEPTION ISLAND, Antarctica Earth's past, present and future come together here on the northern peninsula of Antarctica, the wildest, most desolate and mysterious of its continents.

Clues to answering human-ity's most basic questions are locked in this continental freezer the size of the United States and half of Canada: Where did we come from? Are we alone in the universe? What's the fate of our warm-ing planet?

The first explorers set foot in Antarctica 194 years ago hunting 19th century riches of whale and seal oil and fur, turning tides red with blood. Since then, the fist-shaped continent has proven a trea-sure chest for scientists trying to determine everything from the creation of the cosmos to how high seas will rise with global warming.

"It's a window out to the universe and in time," said Kelly Falkner, polar program chief for the U.S. National Sci-ence Foundation.

For a dozen days in January, in the middle of the chilly Ant-arctic summer, The Associated

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by foster parents about increasing the number of children one family may take in. Many of these foster par-ents had the capacity to take on more children, said Daw, but restrictions wouldn't allow it. One of the reasons for the change is the neces-sity that sibling groups be broken up to comply with current standards.

Daw said he believes the bill

Press followed scientists from different fields searching for alien-like creatures, hints of pollution trapped in ancient ice, leftovers from the Big Bang, biological quirks that potentially could lead to bet-ter medical treatments, and perhaps most of all, signs of unstoppable melting. The journey on a Chilean navy ship along the South Shetland islands and vulnerable Ant-arctic Peninsula, which juts off the continent like a broken pinky finger, logged 833 miles and allowing the AP team a firsthand look at part of this vital continent.

Antarctica conjures up images of quiet mountains and white plateaus, but the coldest, driest and remotest continent is far from dormant. About 98 percent of it is covered by ice, and that ice is constantly mov-ing. Temperatures can range from above zero in the South Shetlands and Antarctic Pen-insula to the unbearable frozen lands near the South Pole. As an active volcano, Deception Island is a pot of extreme con-ditions. There are spots where the sea boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit, while in others it can be freezing at below 32. And while the sun rarely shines on the long, dark Antarctic winters, nighttime never seems

will help eliminate concerns over siblings being split up. "I would say I'd rather take a small step than a big one. Let's see how that works."

This change would also save taxpayers money by reducing the num- ber of foster families in need of funding. Still, while the bill allows for more children in a household, the prior-ity of not putting too many children in a single home remains. The state wants to preserve

to fall on summer days. While tourists come to

Antarctica for its beauty and remoteness, scientists are all business. What they find could affect the lives of people thou-sands of miles away; if experts are right, and the West Antarc-tic ice sheet has started melt-ing irreversibly, what happens here will determine if cities such as Miami, New York, New Orleans, Guangzhou, Mumbai, London and Osaka will have to regularly battle flooding from rising seas.

Antarctica "is big and it's changing and it affects the rest of the planet and we can't afford to ignore what's going on down there," said David Vaughan, science director of the British Antarctic Survey.

Often, scientists find some-thing other than what they were looking for. Last year researchers calculated that ice on the western side of the con-tinent was melting faster than expected. Last month, scien-tists researching vital geology in that melting were looking a half mile under the ice in pitch dark and found a surprise: fish a half foot long and shrimp-like creatures swimming by their cameras.

Geologists are entranced by Antarctica's secrets. On a recent scientific expedition led by Chile's Antarctic Institute, Richard Spikings, a research geologist at the University of Geneva, wielded a large ham-mer to collect rock samples in

a family setting for foster children and avoid a group home atmosphere.

This concern was raised by Senator Allen Chris-tensen, R- Ogden, who said

people may be concerned the change could "[open] the doors for people trying to stuff their doors with

foster kids to make money." Daw resp-

onded

the South Shetlands and the Antarctic Peninsula. Curious members of a penguin colony on Cape Legoupil watched as he pounded on slabs of black granite and diorite rising out of the southern ocean. By the end of the two-week trip, his colleagues had jokingly begun calling him "Thor."

"To understand many aspects in the diversity of ani-mals and plants it's important to understand when continents disassembled," Spikings said. "So we're also learning about the real antiquity of the Earth and how [continents] were configured together a billion years ago, half a billion years ago, 300 million years ago," he said, adding that the insights will help him understand Ant-arctica's key role in the jigsaw of ancient super continents. With names like Rodinia, Gondwana and Pangaea, sci-entists believe they were sig-nificant landmasses in Earth's history and were periodically joined together through the movement of plates.

Because there is no local industry, any pollution cap-tured in the pristine ice and snow is from chemicals that traveled from afar, such as low levels of lead found in ice until it was phased out of gasoline, or radiation levels found from above-ground nuclear tests thousands of miles away and decades ago by the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Vaughan said.

that not only does DCFS closely monitor families to prevent this from happening, foster parents normally lose money rather than profit.

"For the amount that we pay foster parents for tak-ing care of these kids, I can guarantee there is no money-making operations going on out there;' Christensen said. "Unless they don't clothe them, or feed them, or send them to school, or don't do anything with them but lock them in their bedroom."

Crissy Watson is one of Daw's constituent foster parents. In her eight years of foster parenting, she has taken in 138 kids. Her concern is for the teenagers in foster care according to Watson, only about 20 percent of foster parents prefer to take in teenagers. This bill should offer more options for older foster children who have younger siblings.

Residential facilities and private group homes cost the state significantly more than foster care placements with families.

"It saves the state a lot of money;' said Watson. "I feel really strongly that kids should be in a family environ-ment whenever possible, and if we've got families that are willing, that are able, that are capable, then why not just one more?"

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Keri Stevens, ommunity & Business Reporter

A lot of bad things happen in the world, so there are a lot of bad things covered in the news. But there are also a lot of good things happening in the worldespecially in our communityso when I write, it is those good things I strive to show.

, Haley Sotelo is a Brigham Young University student journalist covering the Utah Legislature for Capital West News.