Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Mental health courts are relatively new to the scenes of therapeutic jurisprudence and problem-solving courts. Research is necessary to determine how to evaluate this unique subset of courts and their clients. This research uses a mixed methodology to develop grounded theories explaining the differences found in more successful courts whose jurisdiction saw a statistically significant decrease in crime rate after the mental health court was established and less successful courts that did not. Eleven Oklahoma-based mental health courts were researched. More successful courts prioritized intensive monitoring methods, multiple specially tailored treatment options, and additional program supports. More successful courts also used a diverse court team, emphasized proper program assessment, visibly divided compliant and noncompliant participants in court, and gave “tangible symbolic incentives.” The found successful theories were compared with the published Essential Elements of a Mental Health Court and Cesare Beccaria’s Essay on Crimes and Punishment for possible future validation efforts.

Keywords

mental health courts problem-solving courts specialty courts drug courts therapeutic jurisprudence tangible symbolic incentives

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Almquist

Dodd

(2009). Mental health courts: A guide to research-informed policy and practice. New York, NY: Council of State Governments Justice Center.

Aos

Lee

Drake

Pennucci

Klima

Miller

Burley

(2011). Return on investment: Evidence-based options to improve statewide outcomes. Olympia: Washington State Institute for Public Policy.

Beccaria

(1819). An essay on crimes and punishments. Philadelphia, PA: Philip H. Nicklin.

Berman

Feinblatt

(2001). Problem-solving courts: A brief primer. Law & Policy, 23, 125-140.

Bouffard

J. A.

Richardson

K. A.

(2007). The effectiveness of drug court programming for specific kinds of offenders: Methamphetamine and DWI offenders versus other drug-involved offenders. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 18, 274-293. doi:10.1177/0887403406298621

Bullard

C. E.

(2014). Evaluating dimensions of mental health courts by their effect on jurisdictional crime rates (Masters Thesis). Tulsa, OK: Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences.

Bureau of Justice Assistance. (2003). Tribal healing to wellness courts: The key components. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved from https://www.ncjrs.gov/txtfiles1/bja/188154.txt

Callahan

Steadman

H. J.

Tillman

Vesselinov

(2013). A multi-site study of the use of sanctions and incentives in mental health courts. Law and Human Behavior, 37, 1-9.

Carey

S. M.

Mackin

J. R.

Finigan

M. W.

(2012). What works? The ten key components of Drug Court: Research-based best practices. Drug Court Review, 8, 6-42.

10.

Cavanaugh

J. M.

(2010). Helping those who serve: Veterans treatment courts foster rehabilitation and reduce recidivism for offending combat veterans. New England Law Review, 45, 463.

11.

Cavanaugh

M. R.

Franklin

T. W.

(2012). Do DWI courts work? An empirical evaluation of a Texas DWI court. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 51, 257-274. doi:10.1080/10509674.2011.641074

12.

Clark

R. E.

Teague

G. B.

Ricketts

S. K.

Bush

P. W.

Xie

McGuire

T. G.

. . .Zubkoff

(1998). Cost-effectiveness of assertive community treatment versus standard case management for persons with co-occurring severe mental illness and substance use disorders. Health Services Research, 33(5, Pt. 1), 1285-1308.

13.

Creswell

J. W.

(2013). Research design: Qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

14.

Cross

(2011). Mental health courts effectiveness in reducing recidivism and improving clinical outcomes: A meta-analysis. Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3052

15.

Denckla

Berman

(2001). Rethinking the revolving door: A look at mental illness in the courts. New York, NY: Center for Court Innovation.

16.

Dirks-Linhorst

P. A.

Linhorst

(2012). Recidivism outcomes for suburban mental health court defendants. American Journal of Criminal Justice, 37, 76-91. doi:10.1007/s12103-010-9092-0

17.

Downey

P. M.

Roman

J. K.

(2010). A Bayesian meta-analysis of drug court cost-effectiveness. Washington DC: District of Columbia Crime Policy Institute.

18.

Fulkerson

Keena

L. D.

O’Brien

(2013). Understanding success and nonsuccess in the Drug Court. International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 57, 1297-1316.

19.

Geertz

(1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays (Vol. 5019). New York, NY: Basic Books.

20.

Greenwood

P. W.

(1980). Rand research on criminal careers: An update on progress to date (Vol. 68). Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

21.

Gutierrez

Bourgon

(2012). Drug treatment courts: A quantitative review of study and treatment quality. Justice Research and Policy, 14, 47-77.

22.

Hawkins

M. D.

(2009). Coming home: Accommodating the special needs of military veterans to the criminal justice system. Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, 7, 563.

23.

Hesse-Biber

(2003). Approaches to qualitative research: A reader on theory and practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

24.

Jones

A. S.

Gondolf

E. W.

(2001). Time-varying risk factors for reassault among batterer program participants. Journal of Family Violence, 16, 345-359.

25.

Marlowe

D. B.

(2010). Research update on adult drug courts. Alexandria, VA: National Association of Drug Court Professionals. Retrieved from http://www.nadcp.org/sites/default/files/nadcp/Research%20Update%20on%20Adult%20Drug%20Courts%20-%20NADCP_1.pdf.

26.

Mitchell

Wilson

D. B.

Eggers

MacKenzie

D. L.

(2012). Assessing the effectiveness of drug courts on recidivism: A meta-analytic review of traditional and non-traditional drug courts. Journal of Criminal Justice, 40, 60-71.

27.

Moore

M. E.

Hiday

V. 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.

28.

National Association of Drug Court Professionals & United States of America. (2013). Adult drug court best practice standards (Vol. I). Alexandria, VA: National Association of Drug Court Professionals).

29.

National Center for DWI Courts. (2006). The guiding priniciples of DWI courts. Retrieved from http://www.dwicourts.org/sites/default/files/ncdc/Guiding_Principles_of_DWI_Court_0.pdf

30.

National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. (2003). Juvenile drug courts strategies in practice. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice. Retrieved from http://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/abstract.aspx?ID=197866

31.

National Institute of Justice. (2013). Drug courts. Retrieved from http://www.nij.gov/topics/courts/drug-courts/Pages/welcome.aspx

32.

Petrucci

C. J.

(2010). A descriptive study of a California domestic violence court: Program completion and recidivism. Victims & Offenders: An International Journal of Evidence-based Research, Policy and Practice, 5, 130-160. doi:10.1080/15564880903423037

33.

Porter

Rempel

Mansky

(2010). What makes a court problem solving? Universal performance indicators for problem-solving justice. New York, NY: Center for the Court Innovation.

34.

Ray

(2014). Problem-solving courts. In Albanese

J.S.

(Ed.), The encyclopedia of criminology and criminal justice. (1st ed., pp 1-5) Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. DOI: 10.1002/9781118517383.wbeccj34.

35.

Research and Development. (2007). RAND study first to document costs and fiscal impact of a mental health court. Psychiatric Services, 58, 577

36.

Rossman

Willison

Mallik-Kane

Kim

Debus-Sherrill

Downey

(2012). Criminal justice interventions for offenders with mental health illness: Evaluation of mental health courts in Bronx and Brooklyn, New York (Final report). Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.

37.

Russell

J. R. T.

(Producer). (2013, August 19). The 10 key components of veteran’s treatment court. V11 Veterans Justice Outreach [online lecture]. Retrieved from http://www.justiceforvets.org/sites/default/files/files/Ten%20Key%20Components%20of%20Veterans%20Treatment%20Courts%20.pdf

38.

Shaffer

D. K.

(2011). Looking inside the black box of drug courts: A meta-analytic review. Justice Quarterly, 28, 493-521.

39.

Snow

D. L.

Sullivan

T. P.

Swan

S. C.

Tate

D. C.

Klein

(2006). The role of coping and problem drinking in men’s abuse of female partners: Test of a path model. Violence and Victims, 21, 267-285.

40.

Steadman

H. J.

Redlich

Callahan

Robbins

P. C.

Vesselinov

(2011). Effect of mental health courts on arrests and jail days: A multisite study. Archives of General Psychiatry, 68, 167-172. doi:10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2010.134

41.

Taylor

B. G.

Davis

R. C.

Maxwell

C. D.

(2001). The effects of a group batterer treatment program: A randomized experiment in Brooklyn. Justice Quarterly, 18, 171-201. doi:10.1080/07418820100094861

42.

Thompson

Osher

F. C.

Tomasini-Joshi

(2008). Improving responses to people with mental illnesses: The essential elements of a mental health court. Retrieved from https://www.bja.gov/Publications/MHC_Essential_Elements.pdf

43.

Thrasher

R. R.

(2001). Serious crime and the public consumption of alcohol. New York, NY: LFB Scholarly Publishing.

44.

Van Koppen

P. J.

De Keijser

J. W.

(1997). Desisting distance decay: On the aggregation of individual crime trips. Criminology, 35, 505-515. doi:10.1111/j.1745-9125.1997.tb01227.x

45.

Wexler

D. B.

Winick

B. J.

(1991). Essays in therapeutic jurisprudence. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.

46.

Wilson

D. B.

(2006). A systematic review of drug court effects on recidivism. Journal of Experimental Criminology, 2, 459-487.

47.

Winick

B. J.

(1997). The jurisprudence of therapeutic jurisprudence. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 3, 184.

48.

Zweig

Lindquist

Downey

Roman

Rossman

(2012). Drug court policies and practices: How program implementation affects offender substance use and criminal behavior outcomes. Drug Court Review, 8, 43-79.

Evaluating Mental Health Court by Impact on Jurisdictional Crime Rates

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References