Jail is no place for a person with mental health issues - even one who breaks the law - a board of Yukon Court of Appeal judges has said.

But with no other option available in the Yukon, that's where some offenders will inevitably be placed, and putting them in jail does not infringe on their fundamental rights.

That decision came down this week as a result of an appeal filed by a woman in just that situation.

Veronica Germaine was kept at the Whitehorse Correctional Centre (WCC) for a year and a half after she was found not criminally responsible by reason of mental disorder for a series of violent crimes committed between May 2006 and April 2007.

Germaine had been charged with assault, breaking and entering, arson and unlawful possession of a weapon - but she was also found to suffer from bipolar disorder and severe depression.

During the trial, it was learned the 32-year-old Northern Tutchone woman spent much of her young life in foster care and suffered abuse and neglect throughout her childhood.

She has a serious problem with drugs and alcohol, evidenced by the fact that all of her crimes were committed while she was drunk or high.

Her case was sent to the Yukon Review Board, which takes on cases of offenders with mental illnesses who are unfit to stand trial or found not criminally responsible.

At first, the board gave her a conditional discharge.

Germaine was let out of jail, where she had been held before and during her trial. She was ordered to stay off drugs and alcohol, obey a curfew and attend a three-week substance abuse program.

A week later, Germaine took off. She was gone for 10 days, during which time she drank and used, before being arrested and returned to WCC.

In April of 2008, the board decided Germaine was in no condition to live on her own, and that she was a danger to both herself and the community. She must, the board said, live in a secure environment where she could get psychiatric care and stay off drugs and alcohol.

Whitehorse General Hospital does not have the space, the staff nor the security to take care of potentially violent patients. Neither do the handful of supervised group homes in Whitehorse.

The families who - with the help of government funding - take in adults with mental health issues are also out of the question for patients who are at risk to violently reoffend.

The only place that fits the description in the Yukon is the corrections centre. (Germaine told the board she did not want to leave the territory for treatment.)

So Germaine went to jail.

She then filed an appeal of the board's decision to send her there with the highest court in the territory.

Keeping her in WCC violated her rights under both the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Criminal Code, she claimed.

But justices Risa Levine, David Frankel and David Tysoe of the Yukon Court of Appeal decided otherwise.

In their written decision, released Thursday, they said the review board correctly put Germaine in jail.

After she broke the rules of her conditional discharge, the board consulted her psychiatrist who said although WCC was not the best place for Germaine, "it's the place that would be available to her and ... she would still be receiving services while she was there."

Placing her at WCC, which under Yukon law is a designated hospital for people with mental illnesses, would also give her the opportunity to get on the waiting list for the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.

Germaine ultimately said she did not want to go to Toronto. She said she wished "to remain close to the people within her first nation community who are committed to her healing and reintegration."

Levine writes: "There were no alternative dispositions suggested to the board, and none suggested on appeal, that would better meet the twin goals of protection of the public and treatment (for Germaine)."

The judge said it was "disingenuous to suggest that the order was unreasonable and unfair ... when no suitable, practical or possible alternative was available in Yukon, and any outside of Yukon were rejected by (Germaine)."

While Levine said the decision "should not be taken to justify the continued use of WCC, or any prison, as a hospital for not criminally responsible accused generally," in the circumstances of this case, she and her fellow justices found that WCC was the best and safest option for both Germaine and the public.

In October 2008, the board reviewed Germaine's case and ordered her to stay at WCC for another three months while staff at Health and Social Services found a suitable home for her on the outside.

In February, she was released and is now living with a family in Whitehorse.