Mental Health Issues in Criminal Justice
Megan Urbanski
PSCI: 130 American Legal System
April 29, 2018 Mentally inmates have recently become a higher population within the criminal justice system. While many prisons and jails have begun to teach their staff members how to handle this special population, there are still changes that need to be made in order to properly understand this special population of inmates. With the closing of state hospitals, mentally ill individuals have begun to get absorbed into the criminal justice system. Approximately twenty percent of the incarcerated population is reported to have a serious mental illness, a rate 4 to 6 times higher than in the general population (Kerle 2016).
There needs to be …show more content…
In the 1980s, most of the mental health law activity relied upon criminal cases, such as cases of insanity or competency. Many cases of the time dealt with pleas of insanity that called for the McNaughton rule, which tested someone for criminal insanity at the time of the crime (Wexler 1992). Much of the scrutiny around the insanity defense came after John Hinkley Jr. was acquitted by reason of insanity after his attempt assassination of President Ronald Reagan (Jennings 2009). Insanity laws have become much stricter after the public outrage that that case …show more content…
Mental Health Courts (MHCs) began in the mid-1990s, in response to the overwhelming rise of mentally ill offenders entering the criminal justice system (Lowder, Desmarais, and Baucom 2015). MHCs are an alternative to incarceration for mentally ill offenders. They are a specialized court sanctioned diversion program that aims to connect mentally ill offenders to community based mental treatment services (Lowder, et al. 2015). They were primarily designed to reduce recidivism, rate of reoffending, within the mental health population, as well as meet the special needs of this special population (Campbell, et al. 2015). Through MHCs, an offender must go through a series of check-in with the judge, so that the judge and see if they are progressing. MHCs are run a lot like Drug Courts in that they help a special population of criminals and try to divert them from staying incarcerated. These courts help these offenders get back on their feet by helping them find housing and a
Megan Urbanski
PSCI: 130 American Legal System
April 29, 2018 Mentally inmates have recently become a higher population within the criminal justice system. While many prisons and jails have begun to teach their staff members how to handle this special population, there are still changes that need to be made in order to properly understand this special population of inmates. With the closing of state hospitals, mentally ill individuals have begun to get absorbed into the criminal justice system. Approximately twenty percent of the incarcerated population is reported to have a serious mental illness, a rate 4 to 6 times higher than in the general population (Kerle 2016).
There needs to be …show more content…
In the 1980s, most of the mental health law activity relied upon criminal cases, such as cases of insanity or competency. Many cases of the time dealt with pleas of insanity that called for the McNaughton rule, which tested someone for criminal insanity at the time of the crime (Wexler 1992). Much of the scrutiny around the insanity defense came after John Hinkley Jr. was acquitted by reason of insanity after his attempt assassination of President Ronald Reagan (Jennings 2009). Insanity laws have become much stricter after the public outrage that that case …show more content…
Mental Health Courts (MHCs) began in the mid-1990s, in response to the overwhelming rise of mentally ill offenders entering the criminal justice system (Lowder, Desmarais, and Baucom 2015). MHCs are an alternative to incarceration for mentally ill offenders. They are a specialized court sanctioned diversion program that aims to connect mentally ill offenders to community based mental treatment services (Lowder, et al. 2015). They were primarily designed to reduce recidivism, rate of reoffending, within the mental health population, as well as meet the special needs of this special population (Campbell, et al. 2015). Through MHCs, an offender must go through a series of check-in with the judge, so that the judge and see if they are progressing. MHCs are run a lot like Drug Courts in that they help a special population of criminals and try to divert them from staying incarcerated. These courts help these offenders get back on their feet by helping them find housing and a