4.6 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 the use of criminal-justice tools to manage people with mental disorders who may not actually require or benefit from arrest or incarceration.
- Criminalization is a problem for the criminal justice-involved people who may, as a result of their criminal-system involvement, incur significant harm from 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, sexuality, or other marginalizations. Criminalization of mental disorders presents legal problems, financial burdens, and poor outcomes that impact individuals, justice system participants, and the larger community.
- 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.
4.6.1 Key Terms
- Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years), such as experiencing violence, abuse, or neglect, witnessing violence, or having a family member attempt or die by suicide [Source].
- Community corrections: A period of oversight outside of jail or prison (probation), or after serving time in jail (parole)– when a person will have particular conditions they must fulfill in order to remain in the community.
- Criminalization of Mental Disorders: Using the criminal justice system as a response to people who come to the attention of authorities primarily due to their mental disorders.
- Diversion: where a person is identified at some point (early or late) in the criminal justice system and provided with a pathway out of that system, often to include interventions or treatments meant to resolve the underlying concerns
- Intercept: a window in time during a person’s interaction with the criminal justice system where that person might be provided an opportunity for diversion out of the system.
- Mental health court: A diversion or “problem-solving” court that provides supervision for treatment and other interventions as an alternative to traditional criminal treatment (jail or fines) for qualifying offenders, usually lower-level offenders who experience mental disorders and/or substance use disorders.
- National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI): a nationwide advocacy organization for people experiencing mental illness and their families.
- Pretrial services: Programs that allow a person to be supervised in the community while awaiting resolution of criminal charges.
- Problem-solving courts: Courts that attempt to support sustainable behavior changes (and avoid incarceration) by responding to offending conduct with treatment and other interventions. These courts are often part of diversion programs. Examples are drug courts and mental health courts.
- Reentry: When a person is leaving jail or prison and returning to integrate into the community, often under supervision, such as on probation or parole.
- School-to-Prison Pipeline: When patterns of school discipline push students toward entry into the juvenile or adult justice systems. This is a particular risk and concern for students of color, disabled students, and students living in poverty.
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA): an agency of the U.S. government that leads public health initiatives aimed at improving national mental health. SAMHSA offers extensive information and resources on mental disorders.
- Sequential Intercept Model (SIM): a tool for discussing and assessing various diversion options for people with mental disorders in the criminal justice system. The SIM may highlight options that are available or missing in a particular community.
4.6.2 Discussion Questions
- What privileges (educational, socioeconomic, etc.) may reduce the likelihood of criminalization of mental disorders, and what barriers (racism, poverty, etc.) may worsen this problem for particular individuals or groups? Consider how and why these intersectional factors change outcomes, and how these may be addressed in our criminal justice system.
- Which particular “intercept” seems, to you, to be the best time to divert people out of the criminal justice system? Are there any factors that make you favor different intercept points for different individuals?
- What are the pros and cons of mental health courts, as discussed in the text and portrayed in the linked video, as a diversion opportunity?