Formal diversion programs are increasingly popular options for offenders with mental illness. Diversion is recommended, and often assumed, to be swift in that eligible persons should be quickly identified and enrolled. In this study, the authors examine the length from initial arrest to enrollment into mental health court and compare it to time from arrest to disposition for offenders with and without mental illness traditionally processed. The authors, using medians as the metric and limiting the period to 1 year, found time to mental health court was 70 days, whereas traditional processing for offenders with and without known mental illness was 37 and 76 days, respectively. The authors also found detention status during this period to have a large effect on processing time.
AnnoB. J. (2001). Correctional health care: Guidelines for the management of an adequate delivery system. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Corrections.
3.
BoothroydR.PoythressN.McGahaA.PetrilaJ. (2003). The Broward Mental Health Court: Process, outcomes and service utilization. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 26, 55-71.
4.
CohenF.GerbasiJ. B. (2005). Legal issues regarding the provision of mental health care in correctional settings. In ScottC. L.GerbasiJ. B. (Eds.), Handbook of correctional mental health (pp. 260-272). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Publishing.
5.
CohenT. H.ReavesB. A. (2006). Felony defendants in large urban counties, 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
6.
Council of State Governments. (2005). Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project. Retrieved from http://www.consensusproject.org
7.
DittonP. (1999). Mental health and treatment of inmates and probationers. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.
8.
DraineJ.WilsonA. B.MetrauxS.HadleyT.EvansA. C. (2010). The impact of mental illness status on the length of detention and the legal mechanism of jail release. Psychiatric Services, 61, 458-462.
HidayV. A.RayB. (2010). Arrests two years after exiting a well-established mental health court. Psychiatric Services, 61, 463-468.
11.
JamesD. J.GlazeL. E. (2006, September). Mental health problems of prison and jail inmates (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, NCJ 2136). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
12.
KyckelhahnT.CohenT. (2008). Felony defendants in large urban counties, 2004. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved from http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fdluc04.pdf
13.
LambH. R.WeinbergerL. E. (1998). Persons with severe mental illness in jails and prisons: A review. Psychiatric Services, 49, 483-492.
14.
LinhorstD. M.Dirks-LinhorstP. A.StiffelmanS.GianinoJ.BernsenH. L.KelleyB. J. (2009). Implementing the essential elements of a mental health court: The experiences of a large multijurisdictional suburban county. Journal of Behavioral Health Services and Research, 37, 427-442.
15.
LuskinM. L. (2001). Who is diverted? Case selection for court-monitored mental health treatment. Law and Policy, 23, 217-236
16.
McNielD.BinderR. (2007). Effectiveness of a mental health court in reducing criminal recidivism and violence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 164, 1395-1403.
17.
McNielD.BinderR. (2010). Stakeholder views of a mental health court. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 227-235.
18.
MooreM. E.HidayV. A. (2006). Mental health court outcomes: A comparison of re-arrest and re-arrest severity between mental health court and traditional court participants. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 659-674.
19.
MorrisL.SteadmanH. J. (2008, March). Time to enrollment in a multi-site jail diversion study. Paper presented at the National GAINS Conference, Washington, DC.
20.
NaplesM.MorrisL. S.SteadmanH. J. (2007). Factors in disproportionate representation among persons recommended by programs accepted by courts for jail diversion. Psychiatric Services, 58, 1095-1101.
21.
O’KeefeK. (2006, September). The Brooklyn Mental Health Court evaluation: Planning, implementation, courtroom dynamics, and participant outcomes. New York, NY: Center for Court Innovation.
22.
PetrilaJ. P.PoythressN.McGahaA.BoothroydR. (2001, Winter). Preliminary observations from an evaluation of the Broward County Mental Health Court. Court Review, pp. 14-22.
23.
PetrilaJ. P.RedlichA. D. (2008). Mental illness and the courts: Some reflections on judges as innovators. Court Review, 43, 164-173.
24.
RedlichA. D. (2010). The past, present, and future of mental health courts. Manuscript submitted for publication.
25.
RedlichA. D.SteadmanH. J.CallahanL.RobbinsP. C.VesselinovR.OzdogruA. A. (2010). The use of mental health court appearances in supervision. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 33, 272-277.
26.
RedlichA. D.SteadmanH. J.MonahanJ.RobbinsP. C.PetrilaJ. (2006). Patterns of practice in mental health courts: A national survey. Law and Human Behavior, 30, 347-362.
27.
SeltzerT. (2005). Mental health courts: A misguided attempt to address the criminal justice system’s unfair treatment of people with mental illnesses. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 570-586.
28.
SteadmanH. J.MorrisS. M.DennisD. L. (1995). The diversion of mentally ill persons from jails to community-based services. American Journal of Public Health, 85, 1630-1635.
29.
SteadmanH. J.OsherF. C.RobbinsP. C.CaseB.SamuelsS. (2009). Prevalence of serious mental illness among jail inmates. Psychiatric Services, 60, 761-765.
30.
SteadmanH. J.RedlichA. D.CallahanL.RobbinsP. C.VesselinovR. (2011). Assessing the impact of mental health courts on arrests and jail days: A multi-site study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 68, 167-172.
31.
SteadmanH. J.RedlichA. D.GriffinP.PetrilaJ.MonahanJ. (2005). From referral to disposition: Case processing in seven mental health courts. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 23, 1-12.
32.
SteadmanH. J.RobbinsP. C.IslamT.OsherF. C. (2007). Re-validating the Brief Jail Mental Health Screen to increase accuracy for women. Psychiatric Services, 58, 1598-1601.
33.
StefanS.WinickB. J. (2005). A dialogue on mental health courts. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 11, 507-526.
34.
ThompsonM.OsherF.Tomasini-JoshiD. (2008). Improving responses to people with mental illnesses: The essential elements of a mental health court. New York, NY: Council of State Governments Justice Center.
35.
U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2006). State court processing statistics, 1990–2002: Felony defendants in large urban counties (ICPSR02038-v2). Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
