It was a Chicago woman's 396th arrest when a Cook County judge said no more.
Shermain Miles, 51, offered her apologies to the judge on Monday as she took a plea deal that will send her to a mental health and substance abuse treatment program.
"All of us are reaching out to you and offering you, maybe for the first time in your life, a hand, OK?" Judge Peggy Chiampas told Miles in court. "But you've got to reach out and grab all of our hands as well."
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, "Since 1978, Chicago Police alone have arrested Miles 396 times ... under at least 83 different aliases. Those arrests include 92 times for theft, 65 for disorderly conduct, 59 for prostitution-related crimes and five for robbery or attempted robbery."
In most of the cases against her, Miles is arrested, released and never convicted, according to the Sun-Times. The Cook County state's attorney's office counts a total of 73 convictions.
"We also need her to come to court," Fabio Valentini, chief of Cook County's Criminal Prosecutions Bureau told the Sun-Times. "You can see that in a great many cases, she fails to appear in court."
Miles has been at Logan Correctional Center in Lincoln since December. She was released in April 2011 after serving three years for an armed robbery conviction, but was arrested several more times for violating her parole.
Chiampas sentenced Miles to time served for charges of attacking a city alderman, trespassing and public drinking in three separate cases. The judge reportedly said she ruled so because Miles said she would submit to a mental health evaluation and follow-up treatment, as well as treatment for alcohol abuse, at the Lincoln prison.
According to the Sun-Times as of Monday afternoon, IDOC records listed Miles' parole date as "to be determined.
