Stopping the Revolving Door: Effectiveness of Mental Health Court in Reducing Recidivism by Mentally Ill Offenders

Abstract

The results suggest that an MHC can be effective in reducing recidivism among offenders with mental illness and also indicate that persons who commit more severe offenses may be appropriate candidates for MHC.

The Effectiveness of Mental Health Courts in Reducing Recidivism and Police Contact: A Systematic Review

“…In terms of study designs (Campbell and Stanley 1973), six studies employed a post-test only control group design. In this design, the treatment group and a similar control group are observed at follow-up only (Anestis and Carbonell 2014;Christy et al 2005;Cosden et al 2003;Lowder et al 2016;McNiel and Binder 2007;Moore and Hiday 2006). Similar control groups were achieved either by randomization or by propensity score matching.…”

Coercion in Forensic Healthcare: A North American Perspective

“…In the North American context, as elsewhere, the movement towards community based treatment has sought to integrate clinical excellence and public security in models that also aim at maximising the patient's degree of autonomy and freedom from coercion. Part of this debate has been linguistic and informed by moral philosophy, seeking to find language that is sufficiently nuanced so as to reflect the aspirational, person centred, altruistic, and yet, ultimately paternalistic and coercive nature of this movement (Anestis and Carbonell 2014;Backlar et al 2002;McKenzie 2008;Moser and Bond 2009;Szmukler and Appelbaum 2008;Mullen et al 2006 These provisions are changing the nature of the relationship between clinicians and patients. Assertive community treatment, compulsory community treatment (CCT), community treatment orders (CTO), conditional release dispositions, and the extended leave provisions of MHAs bring care to the patient at home or to a community clinic and aim to ensure that engagement is maintained even when the patient's desire to continue treatment falters.…”

“…While results are uneven regarding the effectiveness of individual MHCs in reducing recidivism (Cross 2011;Anestis and Carbonell 2014;Sarteschi et al 2011;Greene 2014;Hiday et al 2013), a recent review of over 400 MHCs indicated that the specialty courts are indeed meeting the stated goal of reducing recidivism (Goodale et al 2013).…”

Longer-Term Impacts of Mental Health Courts: Recidivism Two Years After Exit

“…Studies of MHCs have found that they achieve their primary goal, reduced criminal recidivism, reporting that participants are less likely to offend after than before entering an MHC (2,(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16) and are either less likely or no more likely than comparison groups to reoffend (2,(7)(8)(9)12,(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Most of these studies have examined recidivism after MHC entry for a limited follow-up period when defendants were still in the MHC program.…”