Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program: Fact Sheet

Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program: Fact Sheet

Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program: Fact Sheet

February 2, 2016 (R43556)

People with mental illness comprise a significant proportion of the population involved with the criminal justice system. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that at midyear 2005, over half of state prison and local jail inmates had a mental health problem.¹ Mental health courts were developed to respond to the large number of people in the criminal justice systems with mental illness.²

The federal government provides funding to support mental health courts across the country through the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration program. The purpose of the program is to increase public safety by facilitating collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice, mental health treatment, and substance abuse systems to increase access to treatment for offenders with mental illness.³ Authorized funding for this program expired at the end of FY2014, although, Congress has continued to appropriate funding for the program.

What Are Mental Health Courts?

A working definition of "mental health court"

A mental health court is a specialized court docket for certain defendants with mental illnesses. This court substitutes a problem-solving model for traditional criminal court processing. Participants are identified through mental health screening and assessments and voluntarily participate in a judicially supervised treatment plan developed jointly by a team of court staff and mental health professionals. Incentives reward adherence to the treatment plan or other court conditions. Non-adherence may be sanctioned, and success or graduation is defined according to predetermined criteria.⁴

Despite the expansion of mental health court programs across the country, there is not yet an accepted criteria for what constitutes a "mental health court."⁵ The Council of State Governments (Council) reports that the degree of diversity among programs has made agreement on a core definition difficult.⁶ Mental health courts vary widely on several aspects including target population, charge accepted (e.g., misdemeanor versus felony), plea arrangement, intensity of supervision, program duration, and type of treatment available. The Council worked with leaders in the field to distill the common characteristics of mental health courts into a working definition.

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program

Grants under the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration program have been awarded since FY2006. They can be used by state, local, and tribal governments to provide mental health and other treatment services for mentally ill adults or juvenile offenders that are overseen collaboratively by a criminal or juvenile justice agency or a mental health court and a mental health agency. Specifically, grants under the program can be used to create or expand

mental health courts or other court-based programs for preliminarily qualified offenders;⁷

programs that offer specialized training to criminal and juvenile justice and mental health professionals on how to identify the symptoms of people who might benefit from participating in a mental health courts program;

programs that support cooperative efforts between criminal and juvenile justice agencies and mental health agencies to provide mental health services and, where appropriate, substance abuse treatment, to individuals with a need for such treatment when they are involved with the criminal justice system; and

programs that support state and local cooperation with respect to mentally ill offenders.⁸

The Attorney General can also award grants under the program to state, local, and tribal governments for

programs that offer law enforcement or campus security personnel training in procedures to identify and respond to incidents in which individuals with mental illnesses are involved;

development of specialized receiving centers to assess individuals in the custody of law enforcement personnel for suicide risk and mental health and substance abuse treatment needs;

computerized information systems to improve the response to mentally ill offenders; and

establishment and expansion of cooperative efforts to promote public safety through the use of effective intervention with mentally ill offenders.⁹

Authorizations and Appropriations

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration program was first authorized by the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-414).¹⁰ The act authorized $50 million for FY2005 and such sums as necessary each fiscal year for FY2006-FY2009. The program was reauthorized by the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-416). The act reauthorized appropriations for the program at $50 million each fiscal year for FY2009-FY2014.

Congress has appropriated funding for the program since FY2006. Since FY2006, Congress has appropriated an average of $8 million per fiscal year for the program.

Table 1. Authorizations and Appropriations for the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program

Authorizations and appropriations in thousands of dollars

Fiscal Year

Authorization

Appropriation

2005

$50,000

—

2006

SSAN

4,936

2007

SSAN

4,936

2008

SSAN

6,500

2009

50,000

10,000

2010

50,000

12,000

2011

50,000

9,940

2012

50,000

9,000

2013

50,000

8,369

2014

50,000

8,250

2015

—

8,500

2016

—

10,000

Source: The FY2005-FY2011 appropriations were taken from the congressional budget submissions for the Office of Justice Programs for FY2006-FY2012. The FY2012 appropriation was taken from H.Rept. 112-284. The FY2013 appropriation was provided by the Department of Justice. The FY2014 appropriation was taken from the explanatory statement to accompany P.L. 113-76, printed in the January 15, 2014, Congressional Record (pp. H507-H532). The FY2015 appropriation was taken from the joint explanatory statement to accompany P.L. 113-235, printed in the December 12, 2014, Congressional Record (pp. H9342-H9363). The FY2016 appropriation was taken from the joint explanatory statement to accompany P.L. 114-113, printed in the December 17, 2015, Congressional Record (pp. H9732-H9759). Authorized amounts were taken from P.L. 108-414 and P.L. 110-416.

Notes: "SSAN" means "such sums as necessary." Appropriations acts have cited two authorizations for the appropriation amounts presented in Table 1. The first is the mental health courts program authorized by the America's Law Enforcement and Mental Health Project (P.L. 106-515), the second is the program authorized by the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (P.L. 108-414)

Author Contact Information

[author name scrubbed], Analyst in Crime Policy ([email address scrubbed], [phone number scrubbed])

Footnotes

1.

Lauren E. Glaze and Doris J. James, Mental Health Problems of Prison and Jail Inmates, U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Washington, September 6, 2006, p. 3. These are the most recent data available.

2.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center, Mental Health Courts: A Primer for Policymakers and Practitioners, p. 2.

3.

U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP), https://www.bja.gov/ProgramDetails.aspx?Program_ID=66.

4.

The Council of State Governments Justice Center, Mental Health Courts: A Primer for Policymakers and Practitioners, p. 4.

5.

Ibid.

6.

Ibid.

7.

"Preliminarily qualified offenders" means an adult or a juvenile accused of a non-violent offense who (1) previously or currently has been diagnosed by a qualified mental health professional as having a mental illness or co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorder or manifests obvious signs of mental illness or co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders during arrest, confinement, or before any court, and (2) has faced, is facing, or could face criminal charges for a misdemeanor or non-violent offense and is deemed eligible by a diversion process, designated pretrial screening process, or by a magistrate or judge, on the ground that the commission of the offense is the product of the person's mental illness. 42 U.S.C. §3797aa(a)(9).

8.

42 U.S.C. §3797aa(b)(2).

9.

42 U.S.C. §3797aa(h).

10.

The authorizing legislation for the program is codified at 42 U.S.C. §3797aa.