As you now know, communities have always struggled to find appropriate (effective, ethical, positive) responses to people who experience mental disorders. The challenges around responding appropriately increase where mental disorders are difficult to manage, as when they cause disruption or offending behavior. Though most people with mental disorders do not show this type of behavior, when it does happen, it requires some sort of community safety response. Because our modern community response has tended to be a law enforcement one, people with mental disorders have disproportionately been introduced into the criminal justice system. That outcome is generally identified as a problem: the criminalization of mental disorders.

This chapter discusses the problem of criminalization and reasons that it exists. The chapter goes on to consider opportunities for affected people, who have been drawn into the criminal justice system, to be diverted, or directed onto a different path. Diversions can happen at numerous points along the criminal justice system pathway – from first police contact all the way to post-prison reentry into the community. In this chapter, you will learn about diversion opportunities throughout the criminal justice system and consider how these approaches may reduce the criminalization of mental disorders.