Mental Health Court - Criticisms

Criticisms

Some have criticized mental health courts for deepening, as opposed to lessening, the involvement of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system. They argued that this was particularly true in mental health courts that focus on misdemeanor offenders who would have received short jail sentences or probation if not for the mental health court. These critics urged mental health courts to accept defendants charged with felonies, which many of the more recent courts, such as the Brooklyn Mental Health Court, have started to do.

Critics have also raised concerns about the use of mental health courts to coerce people into treatment, the requirement in some courts that defendants enter a guilty plea prior to entering the court, and about infringement on the privacy of treatment information. Furthermore, many have noted that the rise of mental health courts is, in large part, the result of an underfunded and ineffective community mental health system, and without attention to the deficiencies in community treatment resources, mental health courts can only have a limited impact. Finally, it has been noted that when scarce mental health services are redirected to those who have come in contact with the criminal justice system, it creates a perversion in the system were a person's best bet for obtaining services is to get arrested. "The Role of Mental Health Courts in System Reform". Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law. http://www.bazelon.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=xQf5_1grKcI%3d&tabid=104.