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Journal ArticleDOI

Effectiveness of a Mental Health Court in Reducing Criminal Recidivism and Violence

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TLDR
It is shown that participation in the mental health court program was associated with longer time without any new criminal charges or new charges for violent crimes and maintenance of reductions in recidivism and violence after graduates were no longer under supervision of themental health court.
Abstract
Objective: In response to the large-scale involvement of people with mental disorders in the criminal justice system, many communities have created specialized mental health courts in recent years. However, little research has been done to evaluate the criminal justice outcomes of such courts. This study evaluated whether a mental health court can reduce the risk of recidivism and violence by people with mental disorders who have been arrested. Method: A retrospective observational design was used to compare the occurrence of new criminal charges for 170 people who entered a mental health court after arrest and 8,067 other adults with mental disorders who were booked into an urban county jail after arrest during the same interval. A matching strategy based on propensity scores was used to adjust analyses for nonrandom selection into mental health court. Results: Propensity-weighted Cox regression analysis, controlling for other potential confounding variables (demographic characteristics, clinical variables, and criminal history), showed that participation in the mental health court program was associated with longer time without any new criminal charges or new charges for violent crimes. Successful completion of the mental health court program was associated with maintenance of reductions in recidivism and violence after graduates were no longer under supervision of the mental health court. Conclusions: The results indicate that a mental health court can reduce recidivism and violence by people with mental disorders who are involved in the criminal justice system.

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References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Mental health courts and the complex issue of mentally ill offenders.

TL;DR: The authors discuss the issues of due process, availability of services, and control of resources, which must be addressed before mental health courts are widely implemented.
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Assessing the Effect of Batterer Program Completion on Reassault Using Propensity Scores

TL;DR: Assessment of program effect using propensity score analysis with a quasi-experimental sample indicates that program completion reduced the probability of reassault during the 15-month follow-up, and by nearly 50% for the court-ordered men.
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Psychiatric emergency service use and homelessness, mental disorder, and violence.

TL;DR: The co-occurrence of homelessness, mental disorder, substance abuse, and violence represents a complicated issue that will likely require coordination of multiple service delivery systems for successful intervention and warrant consideration in public policy initiatives.
Journal Article

Resource document on mandatory outpatient treatment

TL;DR: The view that mandatory outpatient treatment can be a useful intervention for a small subset of noncompliant patients with severe and chronic mental illness who go in and out of psychiatric hospitals through the so-called "revolving door" is endorsed.
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Reducing violence in serious juvenile offenders using intensive treatment

TL;DR: A significant reduction in the prevalence of recidivism in the treated group is shown after controlling for time at risk in the community and other covariates, and the effects of non-random group assignment are reduced.
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The results indicate that a mental health court can reduce recidivism and violence by people with mental disorders who are involved in the criminal justice system.