The intersection between the criminal justice and mental health systems is a murky, often terrifying place.

It's a shadowy crossroads that 55-year-old Terry Wayne Fletcher of Huntersville has faced for most of four decades. For Fletcher and others like him, there are more opportunities than ever to escape a cycle of addiction and mental illness that turns that intersection into an endless roundabout.

But Fletcher also is living proof that the bedrock of our republic is also the mental health system's biggest flaw.

While police, courts and families can force an addict or mentally ill person into treatment, the patient often is free to decide whether to stay or go. Fletcher has faced that choice again and again, and his decision has always been the same:

"I'm going."

A regular

Huntersville police arrested Fletcher Nov. 11 and charged him with larceny and possession of drug paraphernalia.

If his name sounds familiar, there's good reason. Actually, more than 100 of them.

Fletcher has been arrested at least 115 times, according to local police. The arrests and incidents date back as far as 1974, when a teenaged Fletcher started using drugs while hanging out with veterans just back from Vietnam, says his sister Doris Johnson.

"We were pretty tight going through school," says Johnson of their time growing up on what is now Dellwood Drive in Huntersville. "He seemed okay until he was 15 or 16."

But Fletcher eventually dropped out of North Mecklenburg High School and began a dizzying cycle of drug use, alcoholism and arrests. His last job, Johnson says, was about 20 years ago at the Foamex plant in Cornelius.

Fletcher's world rarely stops spinning, which means police recognize his name just as surely as they do the codes in their communications systems.

Huntersville officers also arrested him Nov. 1 on larceny and drug paraphernalia charges. The very next day, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police picked up Fletcher on larceny charges. Four days later, it was the Cornelius Police Department arresting Fletcher for trespassing. Fletcher remained in the Mecklenburg County Jail this week following his Nov. 11 arrest in Huntersville.

The only breaks in the cycle have come when Fletcher was in prison, including a stint from 2004 to 2009 in Piedmont Correctional Institution, a state prison in Salisbury.

"We know Mr. Fletcher very well," says HPD Deputy Chief Michael Kee.

So do the folks at businesses near I-77 Exit 23, including CVS, Hardee's, Harris Teeter, the ABC Store, Food Lion, Bi-Lo and Waffle House. The same thing goes at Exit 25 establishments, including Food Lion and Harris Teeter.

"If he shows up at any of those places, we get a call," Kee explains.

Those calls add up over time. In his hometown alone, the Huntersville Police Department has responded to at least 237 calls involving Fletcher.

Uncommitted?

So how can the cycle be stopped? Fletcher's family thought it had the answer when it had him involuntarily committed for mental health treatment.

"He was back out in 24 hours, " says Johnson, Fletcher's sister. "So we never tried that again."

While they are prevented by law from revealing specific information about patients, officials from Carolinas Medical Center, which contracts with Mecklenburg County to provide inpatient mental health services, described the process this way:

"Once a Petition for Involuntary Commitment (PIC) is completed by a concerned individual and approved by the appropriate magistrate, a custody order is granted and served by the Sheriff's Department. Once the person is in custody of the Sheriff's Department, they are delivered to a 24-hour facility. ...

"(T)he person is evaluated by a psychiatrist and findings are documented. ... At this time, the psychiatrist determines whether the documentation on the PIC, along with collateral information from family and patient interviews, is accurate and necessary for the patient to be kept under involuntary commitment. (The law) has strict parameters for involuntary commitment. In layman's terms, the person needs to show clear evidence of being a danger to themselves or others within the past 24 hours. If the psychiatrist does not have specific evidence of these findings, he or she must, under statute, release the patient."

That's what happened when Fletcher was admitted to Carolinas Medical Center, to Black Mountain Neuro-Medical Center, to Mecklenburg Area Mental Health, and to every other facility offering treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.

"Twenty-four hours, and he's gone," Johnson says. "He knows how to use the system. He does need help. We know that, but we don't know what other steps we can take."

Right to choose

The help is there, says Sarah Greene, program administrator of criminal justice partnerships with Mecklenburg County.

"It's door-to-door treatment," Greene says of the mental health services offered to inmates at the county jail.

The sheriff's department, public defender's office and county mental health department all have jail-based representatives who identify and help inmates with psychological and abuse issues.

"Having people in the jail really helps," Greene says.

That's because inmates are a captive audience while they are in custody, and the treatment programs that start in the jail continue after the inmates are released. Mental health specialists also develop plans for repeat offenders like Fletcher, whom they know will be back.

But unless those inmates end up committing a serious crime, it will be up to them whether to stick with whatever treatment program they enter. For Terry Fletcher, the decision has always been the same.

"People have the right to make that choice," Greene says. "Unfortunately, if he wants to go, he's going to go."

Doris Johnson and her sister, Patricia Fletcher, sometimes let their brother stay in their Huntersville home, which is across the street from the house they all grew up in together.

"When he's not here, I don't know where he stays," Johnson says. "I'm very particular about letting him in, because he can be violent."

But Terry Wayne Fletcher, for all his faults, is her brother.

"I know he needs help," she says. "We all know he needs help, and we've tried to get it for him."

But every effort ends the same: with her brother walking away from treatment and back into trouble.

"I think the system has failed us," Johnson says. "I don't know any other way to put it."