Announcements
Billings Gazette (MT) - Special court now in full operation
2/12/07 - "The state's lone court specifically for mentally ill people accused of crimes is now in full operation here, after a startup that began with initial funding in 2003."
Pensacola News Journal (FL) - Task force addresses needs of mentally ill
1/27/07 - "A task force was formed in July that included lawyers, judges, mental-health professionals and law enforcement officers."
Kentucky Post (KY) - Mental health court planned
1/27/07 - "In an effort to help ease overcrowding and keep criminals from making return trips to local jails, officials in Campbell County are looking to create a mental health court that would serve all of Northern Kentucky."
Twin Falls Times-News (ID) - Putting lives back on track
1/22/07 - "The court, created in December 2005, convenes weekly and seeks to rehabilitate mentally ill felons."
Tahoe Daily Tribune (CA) - Mental illness program to broaden
1/04/07 - "A grant will help expand the Behavioral Health Court, which combines various agencies to keep mentally ill inmates out of jail and into a healthy, productive lifestyle."
Houston Chronicle (TX) - Service combines justice, therapy
1/02/07 - "A public defender's office solely representing the mentally ill - believed to be the first of its kind in the nation - will soon begin serving Travis County criminal defendants."
The Times (IN) - Effort to help troubled teens led by judge in Porter County
12/29/06 - "The program's goal is to identify, treat and track youth with mental illness in the juvenile justice system."
Clayton News Daily (GA) - Agencies look to begin mental-health court program
12/27/06 - "Seven agencies are seeking a $50,000 grant to start a mental-health, jail-diversion program in Clayton County, which would put misdemeanor and non-violent offenders, with mental-health problems, into court-monitored treatment instead of prison."
The Cincinnati Post (OH) - Court effort aids mentally ill
12/27/06 - "A program in Cuyahoga County courts, started in response to concerns mirrored in the justice system nationwide, aims to better understand and deal more efficiently with people who are mentally ill."
Tulsa World (OK) - Mental Health Court set
12/24/06 - "Tulsa County court officials are developing a Mental Health Court to address the treatment and supervision needs of mentally ill criminal defendants."
Bradenton Herald (FL) - Florida OK's more beds for mentally ill inmates
12/21/06 - "State lawmakers plan to spend about $16.6 million more for hundreds of new beds to treat county jail inmates with severe mental illness."
Miami Herald (FL) - Judge: DCF not at fault for lack of inmate beds
12/13/06 - "A Broward judge has absolved mental health administrators of responsibility for failing to take jail inmates with mental illness into state hospitals within 15 days of court orders, as required by law."
Reno Gazette-Journal (NV) - Mental health court seen as example for state
12/10/06 - "The success of the Washoe County Mental Health Court underscores the need to improve the state's overall mental-health system."
News 8 Austin (TX) - Public defenders to be appointed for the mentally ill
12/07/06 - "A Travis County public defenders office for people with mental health issues is in the works."
Daily News Journal (TN) - Mental illness court would give inmates chance at new life
12/8/06 - "The Rutherford County Commission's Public Safety Committee has already endorsed an application for a $50,000 grant that would fund the planning of a mental health court."
Denver Post (CO) - State standoff on mentally ill
12/05/06 - "A Denver judge has threatened to fine or imprison the head of the Colorado Mental Health Institute unless the Pueblo hospital finds room to treat mentally ill inmates now languishing in jail cells."
New York Times (NY) - Officials Clash Over Mentally Ill in Florida Jails
11/15/06 - "For years, circuit judges here have ordered state officials to obey Florida law and promptly transfer severely mentally ill inmates from jails to state hospitals...the state is being threatened with steep daily fines if it does not comply."
The Kentucky Post (KY) - Grant to study mental health court
11/02/06 - "The National Association of Counties announced Wednesday Campbell Fiscal Court as one of five recipients of the group's Mental Health Diversion grants."
Florida Times-Union (FL) - Mental health court proposed
10/18/2006 - "Mental-health advocates will meet with community leaders today to discuss establishing a jail diversion and mental health court in Nassau County."
Santa Fe New Mexican - (NM) Breaking a vicious cycle
10/14/06 - "Time on the bench inspires a judge to help form Mental Health Court, a program that aims to teach mentally ill people how to stay out of jail."
Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) - Editorial: Divert mentally ill offenders
10/4/06 - "Ohio counties have created 20 mental health courts, including Hamilton County's that has succeeded in cutting such re-offender rates to less than 10 percent."
Orlando Sentinel (FL) - Polk mental-health court aims to treat inmates' ills
10/01/06 - "To keep Polk County's mentally ill men and women out of the criminal-justice system, local court and law-enforcement officials recently agreed to start a mental-health court."
Bangor Daily News (ME) - Mental health court honors first graduates
9/30/06 - "The co-occurring disorders court began operating in July 2005 in Kennebec County Superior Court with the judge, prosecutor, case manager, crisis counselor and others volunteering their time to get the experimental court off the ground."
Kold News 13 (AZ) - Flagstaff to open court for mentally ill defendants
9/24/06 - "The municipal court in Flagstaff will roll out a new program next month designed to help mentally ill defendants get treatment and avoid further run-ins with the law."
KPVI Newschannel (ID) - Mental Health Court
9/21/06 - "The Bonneville County Mental Health Court is one of only a few mental health courts across the country helping people with drug problems find help."
The Grand Rapids Press (MI)- Ionia jail program saves up to $100,000 monthly
7/27/06 - "Putting someone who has a history of mental illness behind bars only exacerbates the situation, when what they really need is professional help."
The New York Times (NY) - Decriminalizing Mental Illness
7/16/06 - "Now mentally ill people who commit crimes or create public disturbances often go straight to jail, where they receive little treatment and where their symptoms usually get worse."
Miami Herald (FL) - We're in crisis mode
7/09/06 - "Last year, the Miami-Dade County grand jury, in effect, issued an indictment on the way we treat people in our community with mental illnesses."
Weekend America Radio (US) - Mental Health Courts
7/8/06 - "Over the last decade, courts designed to work with offenders who have severe mental illnesses have sprung up across the country."
News Journal (FL) - Editorial: Jail problem's roots lie in mental health policies
6/17/06 - "The real problem is that we continue to expect law enforcement to deal with people with mental and emotional problems that require medical treatment."
The Courier News (IL) - Kane awaits fed money for mental health court
6/15/06 - "A Kane County Board committee on Wednesday approved a budget transfer of $15,000 to cover costs of the new Mental Health Court...."
The Post Journal (NY) - State Offers Crisis Intervention Training For Police
6/6/06 - "The program was designed to teach officers 'specialized skills that will enable them to interact with individuals who are mentally ill or emotionally disturbed in ways that are safe, appropriate, and effective....'"
The News-Sentinel (IN) - DOC moving mentally ill offenders out of supermax units
6/1/06 - "Indiana prison officials facing a federal civil rights lawsuit for locking up mentally ill inmates in virtual isolation have agreed to move most of them into less harsh conditions."
The Associated Press (U.S.) - State settles lawsuit, changes policy about self-harming inmates
5/30/06 - "Settling a lawsuit by a disability-rights group, the state Department of Corrections has agreed take a more therapeutic and less punitive approach to inmates who harm themselves."
Austin American-Statesman (TX) - New office will give free legal help to mentally ill
5/27/06 - "Travis County's new office to help people with mental illnesses navigate the judicial system - the first of its kind in the nation - should be up and running by November, County Judge Sam Biscoe said."
The Capital Times (WI) - Police exploring how to best deal with mentally ill
5/30/06 - "Since a fatal shooting by Madison police of an apparently delusional man ... one local community group has gone on record asking the Madison Police Department to adopt the CIT model, and another is studying the issue."
Concord Monitor (NH) - Editorial: Inside a jail, a tale of both horror and hope
5/30/06 - "The elderly and mentally ill do not belong in jails, which are not set up to care for them. But jails, in New Hampshire and nationally, have become a dumping ground for them because society has failed to pay for more appropriate ways to care for them."
The Journal Gazette (IN) - Jail and the mentally ill
5/23/06 - "The complexity of caring for the mentally ill has prompted officials at the Allen County Jail to intervene promptly when people with mental illnesses arrive at the jail and ensure that they get the care they need."
The East Valley & Scottsdale Tribune (AZ) - Pilot program diverts mentally ill suspects
5/21/06 - "Mentally ill criminal suspects will be diverted to hospitals instead of jail under a $1 million pilot program that Maricopa County supervisors have tentatively approved."
Sun Herald (FL) - Teen becomes youngest person to graduate from mental health court
5/21/06 - "The program offers mentally ill misdemeanor offenders...a way out of the criminal justice system and into treatment."
The Sacramento Bee (CA) - Court dispenses gentle justice to mentally ill
5/15/06 - "Sacramento County plans soon to start a pilot mental health court using Santa Clara County's as a model."
Tampa Bay Newspapers (FL) - BCC talks alternatives to incarceration
5/18/06 - "Commissioner Susan Latvala said part of the money budgeted for criminal justice should be used to get people out of the system, to help them get homes and to stabilize their mental illness."
The Wall Street Journal (NY) - No Way Out:
Trapped by Rules,
The Mentally Ill
Languish in Prison
5/3/06 - "Once imprisoned, mentally ill inmates are rarely paroled. Some "max out" their sentence... and are released. With nowhere to go, and with a recidivism rate higher than that of the general prison population, they often end up back where they started."
Whittier Daily News (CA) - Is justice system failing nonviolent homeless?
4/30/06 - "his documented history of mental illness and homelessness points to a cycle in which people in similar circumstances often find themselves - a cycle that leads to the criminal justice system."
Monterey Herald (CA) - California will spend more than $600 million to improve conditions for mentally ill inmates
4/28/06 - "The money will be used to add 695 beds at mental health facilities being built at prisons in Folsom, Vacaville and elsewhere."
MetroWest Daily News (MA) - House budget would add more jail diversion programs around state
4/26/06 - "House lawmakers voted yesterday to continue funding Framingham's Jail Diversion Program and create other programs like it around the state...."
Democrat and Chronicle (NY) - Advocates push for affordable housing for mentally ill
4/25/06 - "Tens of thousands of state residents with serious psychiatric disabilities don't have access to affordable housing and their quality of life has suffered.... New York spends millions each year on services that don't help this population long term, they said, such as shelters, hospitals, adult homes and prisons."
The Kansas City Star (MO) - Community court takes a win-win approach
4/18/06 - "It is no secret that many people become homeless or fall into petty crime after drinking and doing drugs to self-medicate undiagnosed mental conditions."
Poughkeepsie Journal (NY) - Mentally ill inmates bill gets held up
4/10/06 - " The fate of a bill to prohibit long-term solitary confinement for mentally ill prisoners was uncertain Friday because its Senate sponsor has failed to move it out of a committee he heads."
Idaho Mountain Express and Guide (ID) - Editorial: A start, but Idaho needs expanded mental health programs
4/5/06 - "As a practical matter as well as moral responsibility, mental illness and drug addiction are costly public matters. Most people engulfed in these wretched conditions sooner or later become wards of state programs -- medical treatment, housing, criminal trial and incarceration or probation."
Legislative Gazette (NY) - Former prisoners say special housing units are dangerous
4/3/06 - "Family members of those incarcerated in special housing units and several women formerly confined to those types of cells provided emotional testimony at a press conference held by Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement last Tuesday."
The News Journal (DE) - Inmates grow old, health costs rise
3/26/2006 - "Another costly health problem in prisons today is mental illness. About 17 percent of U.S. prisoners are mentally ill, with many of them suffering from serious psychiatric illness..."
The Daily News Journal (TN) - Jail project gives shot at new life
3/20/06 - "Community volunteers, the criminal justice system and mental health experts will establish services for non-violent prisoners with mental health issues."
The World (OR) - Judge aims to find funds for mental health
3/16/06 - "Bechtold...has seen a large increase in the number of mentally ill people who come before her court for such minor crimes as disorderly conduct, criminal trespassing and shoplifting."
Brattleboro Reformer (VT) - A troubling intersection of criminal justice and mental illness
3/13/06 - "...some are looking at Brodie's death as a troubling intersection of criminal justice and mental illness."
Palm Beach Post (FL) - St. Lucie plans court for mentally ill defendants
3/13/06 - "...judges, law enforcement officers and local social services agencies, have teamed up to help create a program to handle the cases."
The Record (CA) - Law enforcement faces psychological dilemma
3/12/06 - "With people suffering from mental illness making up more than 15 percent of inmates in jails around the country...police are encountering similar situations with greater frequently."
The Oklahoman (OK) - More mental health funds needed, some say
3/9/06
The Sacramento Bee (CA) - Prop. 36 funding increase sought
3/9/06 - "With advocates claiming that 60,000 Californians will graduate from Proposition 36 programs by July, a Senate panel opens hearings today into requests to increase state funding for the initiative requiring treatment instead of prison for drug offenders."
Sun-Herald (FL) - Residents thankful for mental health program
3/5/06 - "The program offers mentally ill misdemeanor offenders intense therapy and the proper medication to help them get their lives back on track, said Tim Green, director of the Charlotte County Mental Health Court."
The Columbus Dispatch (OH) - Ohio's "B" grade near top in mental health services
3/1/06 - "Ohio is one of just five states to get a top rating in the first national survey in 15 years of public mental health services for adults."