We continue to arrest and incarcerate people facing severe mental illness, homelessness and drug addition, only to have them serve their time, get released and repeat the cycle. The courts have evolved, perhaps not fast enough, to balance treatment with incarceration. The resulting structure, called collaborative courts as the barriers between the sides are less apparent in treatment-oriented courts than in traditional law and order courts, try to fix the underlying problem rather than incarcerate, or sometimes in conjunction therewith. From San Mateo County, Judge Michael Wendler, the Supervising Judge of the Collaborative Courts, and District Attorney Stephen M. Wagstaffe. From San Francisco, Melanie Kushnir, Director, Collaborative Justice Programs, San Francisco Superior Court, and James Senal, a Criminal Defense Attorney extraordinarily familiar with the Collaborative Courts in San Francisco.