4.5 Summary
- When faced with people who need help managing mental disorders, communities have turned to the criminal justice system as a first-line response, adding to the problem of criminalization of mental disorders.
- Criminalization of mental disorders refers to using criminal-justice tools to manage people with mental disorders that likely do not actually require arrest or incarceration, as they have not committed violent crimes.
- Criminalization is a problem for the justice-involved people who may, as a result, incur significant harm as a result of police interactions, incarceration, and criminal conviction. These harms may be intensified for particularly vulnerable groups who are at the intersection of mental illness or disability and race, gender, or other marginalizations.
- Criminalization of mental disorders presents legal problems, financial burdens, and poor outcomes.
- Diversion is presented as a solution to criminalization, and these opportunities to exit the criminal justice system can be provided at moments spanning the time before first police contact to the post-incarceration period of supervision.
- The Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) is a tool to assist the observer in visualizing various potential points of diversion, and it can be used to spur community development of diversion programs by identifying needs and opportunities.
- Intercepts 0-7 specifically highlight points in the criminal justice pathway where diversion can occur. Each intercept has strengths and potential weaknesses.
4.5.1 Key Terms
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
- Community corrections
- Criminalization of Mental Disorders
- Diversion
- Intercept
- Mental health courts
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI)
- Pretrial services
- Problem-solving courts
- Reentry
- School-to-Prison Pipeline
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
- Sequential Intercept Model (SIM)