A Separate Justice System For Mental Health Offenders
It is bad enough that persons with mental disorders require special treatment and care when in ordinary circumstances, but when they become prisoners, it gets worse as they get neither proper nor adequate treatment and attention. It is quite normal to find people with mental disorders in correctional facilities deteriorate in their mental conditions. They are subject to abuse and intimidation by other inmates and to add insult to injury, they are denied proper treatment. There are no facilities to provide proper treatment or care, resulting in the sad deterioration.
In the recent past, people with mental disorders seem to be increasingly coming under the criminal justice system. In addition, a significant percentage of such persons seem to get mingled with normal inmates in correctional facilities. To start with, lack or inadequacy of mental health facilities, getting intimidated by normal people and a reluctance to avail of what facilities are available results in their inability to be part of a mentally healthy community and its support systems. This further results in their getting involved in petty and serious crimes, inevitably leading to their arrest, prosecution and imprisonment. Society does not give them the attention and care that they deserve.
Such developments have brought about a need for a judicial system that will specifically address the needs of mentally disturbed persons caught in the criminal web. Thus it is that government officials, policy makers, the Council of State Governments and mental health professionals convened to come up with a solution that will address the specific needs of criminal offenders with psychological disorders.
Till now, 27 special courts have come up around the United States that advocate proper treatment rather than imprisonment for offenders with history of mental illnesses. These courts bridge the gap between mental health and criminal law. Judges, prosecutors and lawyers with sufficient knowledge and experience in dealing with people with mental disturbances staff them. These special courts are expected to work for the benefit of such offenders giving due consideration to their mental condition.
These courts take a two-pronged approach to the issue. One is to endeavor to reduce the incidence of crimes committed by people with mental disorders through public protection and the other is to give due consideration to the mental condition of the offender in judging the person’s offence when sufficient proof exists to that effect. It is hoped that with the setting up of these courts, there will be reduction in the incidence of crimes committed by people with mental illnesses, aggravated by inadequate mental health services. It is also to ensure that such offenders are provided with an alternative to imprisonment that will reduce the probability of the person committing offences again, while providing proper treatment for their illness.
These courts are convinced that the service that they can provide will supplement the efforts of the mental health establishment’s efforts with a sympathetic criminal justice system. This is achieved by finding alternative solutions to the problem while reducing the number of offences committed by people with mental illnesses.
This new program is still in its infancy and evolving. It is under funded, and without set systems and procedures which are yet to evolve to maturity. The Bazelon Center Review’s recent research reveals that there are no models to follow and the special courts are left to their individual devices, to draw up systems and procedures as they deem fit given local conditions.
It is however gratifying that these special courts for mental health are playing a vital role in separating common criminals from offenders with problems of mental health.
