Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project

The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S.

Department of Justice and prepared the following final report:

Document Title: Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project

Author(s): Council of State Governments Document No.: 197103

Date Received: 10/29/2002

Award Number: 2002-DD-BX-0002

This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice.

To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to

traditional paper copies.

Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect

the official position or policies of the U.S.

Department of Justice.

Consensus Project

victims | state corrections directors | prosecutors | mental health advocates | court administrators | mental health providers | researchers

| jail administrators | sheriffs | correctional mental health providers | state mental health directors | victim advocates | parole officials

Council of State Governments

Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

Center for Behavioral Health, Justice & Public Policy

National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) Police Executive Research Forum (PERF)

Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC)

June 2002

Coordinated by

Project Partners

Criminal Justice / Mental Health

Consensus Project

Before October 1, 2002

Council of State Governments / Eastern Regional Conference 233 Broadway, 22nd Floor

New York, NY 10279 Phone: (212) 912-0128 Fax: (212) 912-0549 Web site: www.csgeast.org

After October 1, 2002

Council of State Governments / Eastern Regional Conference 170 Broadway

18th Floor

New York, NY 10038 Phone: (212) 912-0128 Fax: (212) 912-0549 Web site: www.csgeast.org

NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS

Council of State Governments 2760 Research Park Drive P.O. Box 11910

Lexington, Kentucky 40578 Phone: (859) 244-8000 Fax: (859) 244-8001 Web site: www.csg.org ISBN#: 0-87292-896-9 Designed by David Williams

This report was prepared by the Council of State Governments in

collaboration with the Association of State Correctional Administrators, the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, the Center for Behavioral Health, Justice & Public Policy, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, the Police Executive Research Forum, and the Pretrial Services Resource Center.

The Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project was supported by grant number 2002-DD-BX-0002, awarded by the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice and grant number 01 M008529-01- D, awarded by the Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Consensus Project also received support from the van Ameringen Foundation, the Melville Charitable Trust, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute, and Pfizer, Inc. and Eli Lilly, Inc.

Points of view, recommendations, or findings stated in this document are

those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position

or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services, the other project supporters, or the advisory

board members who provided input into this document.

The Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project is an unprecedented national, two-year effort to prepare specific recommendations that local, state, and federal policymakers, and criminal justice and mental health professionals can use to improve the criminal jus- tice system’s response to people with mental illness.

The goal of this project has been to elicit ideas from some of the most respected criminal justice and mental health practitioners in the United States, to develop rec- ommendations that reflect a consensus among seemingly opposing viewpoints, and to disseminate these findings widely so they can make the greatest possible impact on a national problem that affects every community.

Throughout the project, every effort has been made to provide concrete, practical approaches that can be tai- lored to the unique needs of each community.

The Council of State Governments (CSG)—in part- nership with the Police Executive Research Forum, the Pretrial Services Resource Center, the Association of State Correctional Administrators, and the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors—

coordinated this project. The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law and the Center for Behavioral Health, Jus- tice & Public Policy provided CSG with extensive and valuable assistance. Together, representatives of these seven organizations made up the Steering Committee for this project.

Following two meetings of a focus group compris- ing various criminal justice and mental health stake- holders in 1999, project partners established four advi- sory boards. Collectively, these advisory groups included more than 100 leading state lawmakers, police chiefs, officers, sheriffs, district attorneys, public defenders, judges, court administrators, state corrections directors, community corrections officials, victim advocates, con- sumers, family members and other mental health advo- cates, county commissioners, state mental health direc- tors, behavioral health care providers, substance abuse experts, and clinicians. A complete list of advisory board members appears on the following pages. In addition to the insights of these experts, the project benefited from surveys and document reviews that project partners con- ducted to identify relevant efforts from the field.

The policy statements, recommendations for imple- mentation, and program examples described in this re- port are important products of the Consensus Project.

The true value of this initiative, however, will be the extent to which policymakers replicate in their jurisdic- tions the substantive bipartisan, cross-system dialogue that this project has fostered, and the extent to which agents of change—whether elected officials, criminal jus- tice and mental health professionals, or community lead- ers—implement the practical, specific suggestions con- tained in this document.

Preface

Acknowledgements ... vi

Law Enforcement Advisory Board ... xiii

Courts Advisory Board ... ix

Corrections Advisory Board ... x

Mental Health Advisory Board ... xi

Executive Summary ... xii

Introduction ... 2

The Problem ... 4

Reasons for Hope ... 9

How to Use this Report ... 10

Getting Started ... 13

Next Steps... 21

CHAPTER I

Involvement with the Mental Health System ... 26

Policy Statement 1. Involvement with the Mental Health System ... 28

CHAPTER II

Contact with Law Enforcement ... 34

Policy Statements 2. Request for Police Service ... 36

3. On-Scene Assessment ... 40

4. On-Scene Response ... 50

5. Incident Documentation ... 64

6. Police Response Evaluation ... 68

CHAPTER III

Pretrial Issues, Adjudication, and Sentencing 72

Policy Statements 7. Appointment of Counsel ... 74

8. Consultation with Victim ... 78

9. Prosecutorial Review of Charges ... 82

10.Modification of Pretrial Diversion Conditions ... 86

11.Pretrial Release/Detention Hearing ... 90

12.Modification of Pretrial Release Conditions ... 98

13.Intake at County/Municipal Detention Facility ... 102

14.Adjudication ... 112

15.Sentencing ... 116

16.Modification of Conditions of Probation/Supervised Release .... 120

CHAPTER IV

Incarceration and Reentry ... 126

Policy Statements 17.Receiving and Intake of Sentenced Inmates... 128

18.Development of Treatment Plans, Assignment to Programs, and Classification/Housing Decisions ... 136

19.Subsequent Referral for Screening and Mental Health Evaluations ... 152

20.Release Decision ... 154

21.Development of Transition Plan ... 162

22.Modification of Conditions of Supervised Release ... 172

23.Maintaining Contact Between Individual and Mental Health System ... 180

Select Events on the

Criminal Justice Continuum 22

PART ONE

CHAPTER V

Improving Collaboration ... 188

Policy Statements 24.Obtaining and Sharing Resources ... 190

25.Sharing Information ... 194

26.Institutionalizing the Partnership ... 200

CHAPTER VI

Training Practitioners and Policymakers and Educating the Community ... 204

Policy Statements 27.Determining Training Goals and Objectives ... 208

28.Training for Law Enforcement Personnel ... 212

29.Training for Court Personnel ... 220

30.Training for Corrections Personnel ... 226

31.Training for Mental Health Professionals ... 232

32.Educating the Community and Building Community Awareness 236 33.Identifying Trainers ... 240

34.Evaluating Training ... 244

CHAPTER VII

Elements of an Effective Mental Health System ... 246

Policy Statements 35.Evidence-Based Practices ... 250

36.Integration of Services ... 256

37.Co-Occurring Disorders ... 260

38.Housing ... 264

39.Consumer and Family Member Involvement ... 272

40.Cultural Competency ... 276

41.Workforce ... 280

42.Accountability ... 284

43.Advocacy ... 288

CHAPTER VIII

Measuring and Evaluating Outcomes ... 290

Policy Statements 44.Identifying Outcome Measures ... 292

45.Collecting Data ... 298

46.Disseminating Findings ... 302

Overarching Themes 184 PART TWO Appendices... 304

A. Glossary ... 306

B. Program Examples Cited in Report ... 316

C. An Explanation of Federal Medicaid and Disability Program Rules .... 400

D. Project History/ Methodology ... 406

E. Steering Committee ... 410

F. Bibliography ... 414

Index... 422

So many people and organizations made the Crimi- nal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project possible.

Although it is not feasible to recognize each of these con- tributions individually, the Council of State Governments (CSG) staff would like to highlight the special roles of several people involved in this two-year initiative.

First, CSG staff would like to thank the co-chairs of the project, Senator Robert Thompson of Pennsylva- nia and Representative Michael Lawlor of Connecticut.

They initiated this effort, and they provided the leader- ship to realize a vision of bipartisan consensus around issues that initially seemed to many as hopelessly com- plex and controversial. Perhaps most importantly, through changes to policy in their respective states, they demonstrated how elected officials can use the report to effect real, systemic change.

The project partners that made up the Steering Committee have been the core strength of the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project. CSG staff are immensely grateful to the staff of these organiza- tions: the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF);

Association of State Corrections Administrators (ASCA);

the Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC); the Na- tional Association of State Mental Health Program Di- rectors (NASMHPD); the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law; and the Center for Behavioral Health, Jus- tice, and Public Policy.

At PERF, Martha Plotkin and Melissa Reuland’s experience with similar projects and reports always pro- vided the group with a bedrock of strategic expertise.

Under Bob Glover’s stalwart leadership at NASMHPD, Bill Emmet incorporated the diverse and passionate per- spectives of the mental health community into the re- port so deftly that many in the project almost forgot what an impossible assignment he had been handed. Fred Osher patiently educated the group about mental illness, the complexities of the mental health system, and the state of mental health research, and everyone always enjoyed learning from him. Alan Henry and John Clark of PSRC accomplished a feat essential to the credibility of the project, maintaining the confidence of perennial adversaries—prosecutors and defense attorneys—in the project’s process and the final report. Chris Koyanagi consistently (but always constructively) challenged the group to make the report one that respected people with

mental illness. And George Vose and John Blackmore of ASCA made sure the Steering Committee never lost sight of the realities that confront corrections and community corrections practitioners—a primary target audience for the report.

CSG and the project partners are enormously in- debted to the members of the law enforcement, courts, corrections, and mental health advisory boards, who are listed earlier in this report. They each volunteered, over the course of just 18 months, hundreds of hours from their extremely busy schedules. Reviewing draft after draft of the report and crisscrossing the country for meetings, they contributed expertise, ideas, and suggestions about how to improve the response to people with mental illness who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

Although not individually endorsed, the recommenda- tions and policy statements are based on their visions for better criminal justice and mental health systems.

No one person in the country knows more about mental illness, co-occurring substance abuse disorders, and the criminal justice system than Hank Steadman of the GAINS Center. His careful review of early drafts of this report, and his thoughtful comments about how to make it better, improved the Consensus Project report dramatically.

An initiative of the scope and complexity of the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project never gets past the concept phase without considerable funding support. Indeed, a large, diverse group of fed- eral and private grantmakers made this project possible.

Officials from the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S.

Department of Justice (specifically the Bureau of Jus- tice Assistance, the Corrections Program Office, and the Office of Victims of Crime) and the Center for Mental Health Services in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services demonstrated how the federal government can effectively partner with policymakers at the state and local levels. Program of- ficers from nearly a half-dozen private foundations—the van Ameringen Foundation, the Melville Charitable Trust, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute—

took a significant risk at the early stage of this project;

their investments and votes of confidence made it pos-

sible for federal agencies to provide the resources to com- plete the initiative. CSG staff also thank Pfizer, Inc.

and Eli Lilly, Inc. for their support of the Consensus Project.

CSG staff are grateful to Dan Sprague, the Execu- tive Director of CSG, John Mountjoy, CSG’s Chief Policy Analyst, and the Justice and Public Safety Task Force, for allowing and supporting a regional office to coordi- nate a national initiative.

CSG staff would also like to give special thanks to Alan Sokolow, the director of the Eastern Office of CSG.

From the beginning—when it was not at all apparent that federal agencies and private foundations would pro- vide funding support to offset many (but far from all) of the expenses that the project incurred—he put the re- sources of the office behind the initiative. And in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of CSG’s office in the World Trade Center, Alan made temporary office space and other resources available to ensure that the project would continue without any disruption. That com- mitment to the project, and the faith he showed in his staff, was extraordinary and cannot be overstated.

Finally, CSG staff and the project partners thank the many criminal justice and mental health profession- als who work daily to provide a better quality of life to people in their communities. It is for them that this re- port has been written. Their commitment to providing the best possible services to people with mental illness will save us from the enormous costs—in human lives and community resources—we all assume when their needs are not met.

1. denotes attendance at the first advisory board meeting 2. denotes attendance at the second advisory board meeting

3. denotes attendance at the third advisory board meeting

See Appendix D: Project History / Methodology for further explanation of advisory boards.

Sheriff John Wesley Anderson

El Paso County, CO

Senator Ginny Burdick

Chair

Joint Interim Judiciary Committee, OR

Commander of Professional Development Unit

State Police, MD

Sheriff Dan L. Corsentino

Pueblo County Sheriff’s Department, CO

Captain Gary E. Cox

West Jordan Police Department, UT

Director of Public Psychiatry

University of Alabama at Birmingham, AL

Helen Geyso

Alliance for the Mentally Ill, WI

Director, Police Executive Leadership Program

Johns Hopkins University, MD

Vice-Chair

Appropriations Committee, OK

Associate Director, Health Services Department of Human Services, OR

Director, Forest Park Drop In Center The Peer Center & Atlantic Shores Healthcare at South Florida State Hospital, FL

Tom Liebfried

Vice President of Government Relations National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare

Officer Joan M. Logan

Coordinator, Crisis Intervention Team Montgomery County Police Department, MD

Daniel Malloy

Mayor

Stamford, CT

Chief/Director of Police Services The University of Vermont Police Services, VT

Jacki McKinney

National People of Colour Consumer/

Survivior Network, PA

Pasadena Police Department, CA

Montgomery County Police Department, MD

Chief Robert Olson

Minneapolis Police Department, MN

President and CEO

National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare

Erik Roskes

Director, Forensic Treatment Springfield Hospital Center, MD

Staff Attorney, Mental Health Division Public Defender Service, DC

Clinical Coordinator

Department of Health and Human Services, MD

Risdon Slate

Associate Professor of Criminology Florida Southern College, FL

Lt. Colonel Cynthia Smith

State Police, MD

Mark Spurrier

Director, Office for Law Enforcement NOAA, MD

Representative John E. Tholl, Jr.

Vice-Chair

Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee, NH

Senator Robert J. Thompson

Chair, Appropriations Committee, PA

Project Coordinator

International Association of Chiefs of Police,

Chief Mary Ann Viverette

Gaithersburg Police Department, MD

Yves Ades

Director, Mental Health Programs Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, NY

Hon. Pamela G. Alexander

Hennepin County District Court, MN

Superintendent

Anne Arundel Department of Detention Facilities, MD

Robert Boruchowitz

Executive Director

Seattle-King County Public Defender’s Association, WA

Sandra Cannon

Chief of the Office of Forensic Services Department of Mental Health, OH

Public Defender’s Office Hamilton County, OH

Administrator for the Courts, OK

Senior Director of Consumer Advocacy National Mental Health Association

Assistant District Attorney

Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, WI

Hon. William Dressel

President

The National Judicial College

Assistant Court Administrator 7th Judicial Circuit, FL

Representative Michael E. Festa

MA

W. Lawrence Fitch

Director of Forensic Services Mental Hygiene Administration, MD

Hon. Larry Gist

Superior Court District Judge, Beaumont, TX

Hon. Dennis Graves

Circuit Court of Oregon for the County of Marion, OR

James J. Gregart

Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney, MI

Gordon Griller

Court Administrator Superior Court, AZ

Director, Violent Crime Prosecution Unit Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, TN

Ron Honberg

Director of Legal Affairs

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill

Co-Chair

Joint Judiciary Committee, CT

Chair

House Judiciary Committee, VT

Chairman, County Commissioners Montgomery County, PA

Superior Court Judge San Francisco County, CA

District Attorney

Milwaukee County, WI

Chief Executive Officer

Northern Arizona Regional Behavioral Health Authority, AZ

Brian Mock

Assistant Public Defender Broward County, FL

Wendy Niehaus

Director

Hamilton County Pretrial Services Cincinnati, OH

Edward Nowak

Public Defender Monroe County, NY

Director

Center for Behavioral Health, Justice &

Public Policy, MD

Senator Kathleen K. Parker

Chair

Mental Health Evaluation Task Force, IL

Program Officer, Substance Abuse The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, OH

Tammy Seltzer

Staff Attorney

Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

NE

Jo-Ann Wallace

Director

National Legal Aid & Defender Association

Billy Wasson

Probation Consultant Juneau Court, OR

Victim Advocate, NY

Judge

Hamilton County Common Pleas Court, OH

Carl Wicklund

Executive Director

American Probation and Parole Association

Howard Zonana

Professor, Department of Psychiatry Yale University, CT

Courts Advisory Board

1. denotes attendance at the first advisory board meeting 3. denotes attendance at the third advisory board meeting

B. Jaye Anno

Consultant

Consultants and Correctional Health

Chair

Corrections Committee, NY

Chair

Health, Human Services, and Corrections

Budget Division, MN

Senior Director of Justice Programs National Mental Health Association

Chief Medical Officer

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office, CA

Senator Robert E. Dvorsky

IA

Gary Field

Administrator, Counseling and Treatment Services

Department of Corrections, OR

Director, Division of Special Populations

Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Mental Hygiene Administration, MD

Director, Victim Witness Division District Attorney’s Office Travis County, TX

Executive Director

International Association of

Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services

Dee Kifowit

Director

Texas Council on Offenders with Mental Impairments, TX

Senator Jeanine Long

Ranking Member

Human Services and Corrections Committee, WA

Senator Michael J. McAlevey

Chair

Criminal Justice Committee, ME

Medical Director Project Renewal, NY

Criminal Justice Program Analyst Department of Criminal Justice Services, VA

Kenneth A. Ray

Director

Department of Corrections and Security, Yakima County, WA

Executive Director

Department of Criminal Justice, TX

Commissioner

Division of Correction, MD

Executive Director

Butler County Mental Health Board, OH

Executive Director

Community Mental Health Agency, Wayne County, MI

James L. Stone

Commissioner

Office of Mental Health, NY

Senator Maggie Tinsman

IA

Charles Traughber

Chair

Parole Board, TN

Vice President, Community Services &

Advocacy

National Mental Health Association

Director

Department of Corrections, Montgomery County, MD

Executive Director

American Probation and Parole Association

Reginald A. Wilkinson

Director

Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction, OH

1. denotes attendance at the first advisory board meeting 2. denotes attendance at the second advisory board meeting

3. denotes attendance at the third advisory board meeting

See Appendix D: Project History / Methodology for further explanation of advisory boards.

1. denotes attendance at the first advisory board meeting 3. denotes attendance at the third advisory board meeting Yves Ades

Director, Mental Health Programs Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services, NY

Dolly Allison

Director, South Central Programs Portals Mental Health Rehabilitation Services, CA

B. Jaye Anno

Consultant

Consultants and Correctional Health, NM

Senator Linda Berglin

Chair

Health, Human Services and Corrections Budget Division, MN

Senior Director of Justice Programs National Mental Health Association

Chief Deputy Minority Leader, CT

Senior Director of Consumer Advocacy National Mental Health Association, VA

Toby Ewing

Project Manager

Little Hoover Commission, CA

Director of Public Psychiatry

University of Alabama at Birmingham

Director of Forensic Services Mental Hygiene Administration, MD

Wisconsin Alliance for the Mentally Ill, MD

Joan Gillece

Assistant Director

Mental Hygiene Administration, MD

Mental Health Advisory Board

Ron Honberg

Director of Legal Affairs

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill

Executive Director

International Association of

Psychosocial Rehabilitation Services

Associate Director

Health Services, Department of Human Services, OR

Chris Koyanagi

Director of Government Affairs The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

Tom Lane

Director

The Peer Center & Atlantic Shores Healthcare at

South Florida State Hospital

Vice President of Government Relations National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare

Jacki McKinney

National People of Colour Consumer/Survivor Network, PA

Director

Department of Mental Health, CA

Medical Director

Project Renewal, Inc., NY

Chief Executive Officer

Northern Arizona Regional Behavioral Health Authority, AZ

Fred C. Osher

Director

Center for Behavioral Health, Justice &

Public Policy MD

Senator Kathleen K. Parker

Chair

Mental Health Evaluation Task Force, IL

Program Officer, Substance Abuse The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati

Tammy Seltzer

Staff Attorney

Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law

Speaker, Trainer, Author, and Researcher

Anti-Violence Partnership, PA

Executive Director

Butler County Mental Health Board, OH

President

Policy Research Associates, NY

Executive Director

Wayne County Community Mental Health Agency, MI

Pamela Stokes

Research Analyst

National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors

Commissioner James L. Stone

New York State Office of Mental Health, NY

Cecelia Vergaretti

Vice President

Community Services & Advocacy National Mental Health Association

Office of Consumer Advocacy, KY

Executive Summary

I THE PROBLEM

Impact on People and Systems

People with mental illness are falling through the cracks of this country’s social safety net and are landing in the criminal justice system at an alarming rate. Each year, ten million people are booked into U.S. jails; studies indicate that rates of serious mental illness among these individuals are at least three to four times higher than the rates of serious mental illness in the general population.

Because of sensational headlines and high-profile incidents, many mem- bers of the public and some policymakers assume, incorrectly, that the vast majority of people who are in prison or jail and have a mental illness have committed serious, violent crimes. In fact, a large number of people with men- tal illness in prison (and especially in jail) have been incarcerated because they displayed in public the symptoms of untreated mental illness. Experiencing delusions, immobilized by depression, or suffering other consequences of inad- equate treatment, many of these individuals have struggled, at times hero- ically, to fend off symptoms of mental illness. Providers in the mental health system have been either too overwhelmed or too frustrated to help some of these individuals, who typically have a history of being denied treatment or refusing it altogether.

Whereas some of these individuals have no family, others have exhausted the resources or the patience (and often both) of their loved ones. Often, family members, fearful for their safety or because they are simply out of options, ask the police to intervene. In other cases, concerned members of the community alert law enforcement about situations such as these: a woman shouting ob- scenities at shoppers on Main Street; an unkempt man in the park making threatening gestures and urinating in public. Many times, police officers on their patrols encounter individuals with mental illness in various states of pub- lic intoxication. These are individuals who have attempted to self-medicate using alcohol or any illegal substance they could obtain.

There are also cases in which a person with a mental illness commits a

serious, violent crime, making his or her incarceration necessary and appropri-

ate. Still, almost all of these individuals will reenter the community, and the

justice system has the legal obligation (and the obligation to the public) to pre-

pare these individuals for a safe and successful transition to the community.

Given the dimensions and complexity of this issue, the demands upon the criminal justice system to respond to this problem are overwhelming. Police departments dedicate thousands of hours each year transporting people with mental illness to hospitals and community mental health centers where staff often have to turn away the individual or quickly return him or her to the streets.

Jails and prisons are swollen with people suffering some form of mental illness;

on any given day, the Los Angeles County Jail holds more people with mental illness than any state hospital or mental health institution in the United States.

Most troubling about the criminal justice system’s response in many com- munities to people with mental illness is the toll it exacts on people’s lives. Law enforcement officers’ encounters with people with mental illness sometimes end in violence, including the use of lethal force. Although rare, police shootings do more than end the life of one individual. Such incidents also have a profound impact on the consumer’s family, the police officer, and the general community.

When they are incarcerated, people with untreated mental illness are espe- cially vulnerable to assault or other forms of intimidation by predatory inmates.

In prisons and jails, which tend to be environments that exacerbate the symp- toms of mental illness, inmates with mental illness are at especial risk of harm- ing themselves or others. Once they return to the community, people with mental illness learn that providers already overwhelmed with clientele are some- times reluctant to treat someone with a criminal record.

Origins of the Problem

The origins of the problem are complex and largely beyond the scope of this report. During the last 35 years, the mental health system has undergone tremendous change. Once based exclusively on institutional care and isolation, the system has shifted its emphasis almost entirely to the provision of commu- nity-based support for individuals with mental illness. This public policy shift has benefited millions of people, effecting the successful integration of many people with active or past diagnoses of mental illness into the community. Many clients of the mental health system, however, have difficulty obtaining access to mental health services. Overlooked, turned away, or intimidated by the mental health system, many individuals with mental illness end up disconnected from community supports. The absence of affordable housing and the crisis in public housing exacerbates the problem; most studies estimate that at least 20 to 25 percent of the single, adult homeless population have a serious mental illness.

Not surprisingly, officials in the criminal justice system have encountered

people with mental illness with increasing frequency. Calls for crackdowns on

quality-of-life crimes and offenses such as the possession of illegal substances

have netted many people with mental illness, especially those with co-occur-

ring substance abuse disorders. Ill equipped to provide the comprehensive ar-

ray of services that these individuals need, corrections administrators often watch the health of people with mental illness deteriorate further, prompting behavior and disciplinary infractions that only prolong their involvement in the criminal justice system.

II ABOUT THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE / MENTAL HEALTH CONSENSUS PROJECT

The Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project is a unique effort to define the measures that state legislators, law enforcement officials, pros- ecutors, defense attorneys, judges, corrections administrators, community cor- rections officials, and victim advocates, mental health advocates, consumers, state mental health directors, and community-based providers agree will im- prove the response to people with mental illness who are in contact (or at high risk of involvement) with the criminal justice system.

The target audience of the Consensus Project Report is those individuals who can be characterized as agents of change: state policymakers who can have a broad systemic impact on the problem and an array of practitioners and advocates who can shape a community’s response to the problem. Legislators, policymakers, practitioners, and advocates can champion the detailed recom- mendations in the report knowing that each has been developed and approved by experts from an extraordinarily diverse range of perspectives who work in and administer the department, agencies, and organizations trying every day to address the needs of people with mental illness involved (or at risk of in- volvement with) the criminal justice system.

The Consensus Project Report addresses the entire criminal justice con- tinuum, and it recognizes that actions taken by law enforcement, the courts, or corrections have ramifications for the entire criminal justice system. The re- port also recognizes that people with mental illness who are involved with the criminal justice system live in or return to communities, each of which has distinct issues, challenges, assets, and potential solutions to enable people with mental illness to avoid or minimize involvement with the criminal justice sys- tem.

The report provides 46 policy statements that can serve as a guide or prompt

an initiative to improve the criminal justice system’s response to people with

mental illness. Following each policy statement is a series of more specific

recommendations that highlight the practical steps that should be taken to

implement the policy. Woven into the discussion of each recommendation are

examples of programs, policies, or elements of state statutes that illustrate one

or more jurisdiction’s attempt to implement a particular policy statement. While

promising, many of these initiatives are so new that they have yet to be evalu- ated to certify their impact on individuals and systems. Still, they demonstrate how partnerships and resourcefulness can be successfully replicated or tailored to the unique needs of a variety of communities. These examples should also help communities to build on the achievements without duplicating the fail- ures or inefficiencies of others.

State and local government officials and community leaders can use these policy statements, recommendations, and examples to get beyond discussing the issue and to begin developing initiatives that will address the problem.

III. CONSENSUS PROJECT POLICY STATEMENTS

The policy statements in the Consensus Project Report reflect that—from a person’s first involvement with the mental health system to initial contact with law enforcement, to pretrial issues, adjudication, and sentencing, to incarcera- tion and re-entry—there are numerous opportunities for an agent of change to focus his or her efforts to improve the response to people with mental illness who come in contact with criminal justice system. These policy statements are summarized in the chart below.

The first half of this chart corresponds to Part One of the report. These policy statements explain the opportunities available to practitioners in the criminal justice and mental health systems to identify a person who has a men- tal illness and to react in way that both recognizes the individual’s needs and civil liberties and promotes public safety and accountability. In addition, these policy statements summarize elements of programs and policies that would enable law enforcement, court officials, corrections administrators, and mental health providers to provide access to effective treatment and services and to maintain the individual on a path toward recovery.

Policy statements describing the overarching themes (Part Two) of the re- port appear in the second half of the chart below. They reflect that the recipes for implementing each of the policy statements in part one of the report call for many of the same ingredients: collaboration, training, evaluations, and an ef- fective mental health system.

The policy statements concerning collaboration recognize that neither the

criminal justice system nor the mental health system can, on its own, imple-

ment many of the recommendations in the report. For example, law enforce-

ment officials need information about and access to mental health resources to

respond effectively to individuals with mental illness in the community. To

make informed decisions at pretrial hearings, adjudication, and sentencing,

court officials need some information about an individual’s mental illness. Cor-

rections and community corrections administrators should be able to tap a clinician’s expertise when evaluating whether a person eligible for parole meets the criteria for release.

The chapter regarding training calls for criminal justice practitioners to become familiar with the signs and symptoms of mental illness, the appropri- ateness of various responses, and the resources and organization of their local mental health system. Similarly, the implementation of many of the recom- mendations throughout the report depends on mental health clinicians and ser- vice providers who understand the criminal justice system and are willing to look beyond the stigma associated with a criminal record.

Successful implementation of the policy statements throughout the report requires the delivery of mental health services to individuals who have com- plex needs and a long history of unsuccessful engagement in the community- based mental health system. The chapter concerning an effective mental health system discusses the need for mental health services that are accessible, easy to navigate, culturally competent, and integrated; treatment provided should adhere to an evidence base. A community mental health system that does not meet these criteria is unlikely to maintain an individual with mental illness engaged in treatment, and thus will quickly cause criminal justice officials to lose confidence in the community’s capacity to support people with mental ill- ness.

The last set of policy statement in the following chart recognize that mea-

suring the outcomes of programs designed to improve the response to people

with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system is also of paramount

importance. Program administrators must monitor the impact of a new initia-

tive. Such information is essential to determine whether a program or policy is

successful and how it can be improved. It also facilitates continued support for

promising initiatives.

Report

Chapter EVENT/ISSUE

POLICY STATEMENT

Number POLICY STATEMENT

Involvement with the Mental

Health System

Involvement with the Mental

Health System 1

Improve availability of and access to comprehensive, individualized services when and where they are most needed to enable people with mental illness to maintain meaningful community membership and avoid inappropriate criminal justice involvement.

Request for

Police Service 2

Provide dispatchers with tools to determine whether mental illness may be a factor in a call for service and to use that information to dispatch the call to the appropriate responder.

On-Scene

Assessment 3

Develop procedures that require officers to determine whether mental illness is a factor in the incident and whether a serious crime has been committed—

while ensuring the safety of all involved parties.

On-Scene

Response 4

Establish written protocols that enable officers to implement an appropriate response based on the nature of the incident, the behavior of the person with mental illness, and available resources.

Incident

Documentation 5 Document accurately police contacts with people whose mental illness was a factor in an incident to promote accountability and to enhance service delivery.

Contact with Law Enforcement

Police Response

Evaluation 6 Collaborate with mental health partners to reduce the need for subsequent contacts between people with mental illness and law enforcement.

Appointment of

Counsel 7

Make defense attorneys aware of the following: (a) the mental health condition, history and needs of their clients as early as possible in the court process; (b) the current availability of quality mental health resources in the community; and (c) current legislation and case law that might affect the use of mental health information in the resolution of their client’s case.

Consultation with

Victim 8

Educate individuals who have been victimized by a defendant with a mental illness, or their survivors, about mental illness and how the criminal justice system deals with defendants with mental illness.

Prosecutorial Review of

Charges 9 Maximize the use of alternatives to prosecution through pretrial diversion in appropriate cases involving people with a mental illness.

Modification of Pretrial Diversion

Conditions 10 Assist defendants with mental illness in complying with conditions of pretrial diversion.

Pretrial Release/

Detention

Hearing 11

Maximize the use of pretrial release options in appropriate cases of defendants with mental illness so that no person is detained pretrial solely for the lack of information or options to address the person's mental illness.

Modification of Pretrial Release

Conditions 12 Assist defendants with mental illness who are released pretrial in complying with conditions of pretrial release.

Intake at County/

Municipal

Detention Facility 13

Ensure that the mechanisms are in place to provide for screening and identification of mental illness, crisis intervention and short-term treatment, and discharge planning for defendants with mental illness who are held in jail pending the adjudication of their cases.

Pretrial Issues, Adjudication, and Sentencing

Adjudication 14 Maximize the availability and use of dispositional alternatives in appropriate cases of people with mental illness.

Sentencing 15 Maximize the use of sentencing options in appropriate cases for offenders with mental illness.

Modification of Conditions of Probation/Super-

vised Release

16

Assist offenders with mental illness in complying with conditions of probation.

Report

Chapter EVENT/ISSUE POLICY STATEMENT

Number POLICY STATEMENT

Receiving and Intake of Sentenced

Inmates

17

Develop a consistent approach to screen sentenced inmates for mental illness upon admission to state prison or jail facilities and make referrals, as appropriate, for follow-up assessment and/or evaluations.

Development of Treatment Plans,

Assignment to Programs, and Classification /

Housing Decisions

18

Use the results of the mental health assessment and evaluation to develop an individualized treatment, housing, and programming plan, and ensure that this information follows the inmate whenever he or she is transferred to another facility.

Subsequent Referral for Screening and Mental Health Evaluation

19

Identify individuals who—despite not raising any flags during the screening and assessment process—show symptoms of mental illness after their intake into the facility, and ensure that appropriate action is taken.

Release Decision 20 Ensure that clinical expertise and familiarity with community-based mental health resources inform release decisions and determination of conditions of release.

Development of

Transition Plan 21 Facilitate collaboration among corrections, community corrections, and mental health officials to effect the safe and seamless transition of people with mental illness from prison to the community.

Modification of Conditions of

Supervised Release

22

Monitor and facilitate compliance with conditions of release and respond swiftly and appropriately to violations of conditions of release.

Incarceration and Reentry

Maintaining Contact Between

Individual and Mental Health

System

23

Ensure that people with mental illness who are no longer under supervision of the criminal justice system maintain contact with mental health services and supports for as long as is necessary.

Obtaining and Sharing

Resources 24 Determine how the partners will make resources available to respond jointly to the problem identified.

Sharing

Information 25 Develop protocols to ensure that criminal justice and mental health partners share mental health information without infringing on individuals’ civil liberties.

Improving Collaboration

Institutionalizing

the Partnership 26 Institutionalize the partnership to ensure it can sustain changes in leadership or personnel.

Determining Training Goals

and Objectives 27 Determine training goals and objectives and tap expertise in both the criminal justice and mental health systems to inform these decisions.

Training for Law Enforcement

Personnel 28

Establish new skills, recruit, in-service, and advanced skills training requirements for law enforcement personnel about responding to individuals with mental illness, and develop curricula accordingly.

Training Practitioners

and Policymakers and Educating the Community

Training for

Court Personnel 29

Provide adequate training for court officials (including prosecutors and defense attorneys) about appropriate responses to criminal defendants who have a mental illness.

Report

Chapter EVENT/ISSUE POLICY STATEMENT

Number POLICY STATEMENT

Training for Corrections

Personnel 30 Train corrections staff to recognize symptoms of mental illness and to respond appropriately to people with mental illness.

Training for Mental Health

Professionals 31 Develop training programs for mental health professionals who work with the criminal justice system.

Educating the community and

Building Community

Awareness

32

Educate the community about mental illness, the value of mental health services, and appropriate responses when people with mental illness who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

Identifying

Trainers 33 Identify qualified professionals to conduct training.

Training Practitioners and Policymakers and Educating the

Community continued

Evaluating

Trainers 34

Evaluate the quality of training content and delivery; update training topics and curricula annually to ensure they reflect both the best practices in the field as well as the salient issues identified as problematic during the past year.

Evidence-Based

Practices 35 Promote the use of evidence-based practices and promising approaches in mental health treatment, services, administration, and funding.

Integration of

Services 36

Initiate and maintain partnerships between mental health and other relevant systems to promote access to the full range of services and supports, to ensure continuity of care, and to reduce duplication of services.

Co-Occurring

Disorders 37 Promote system and services integration for co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders.

Housing 38 Develop and enhance housing resources that are linked to appropriate levels of mental health supports and services.

Consumer and Family Member

Involvement 39 Involve consumers and families in mental health planning and service delivery.

Cultural

Competency 40 Ensure that racial, cultural, and ethnic minorities receive mental health services that are appropriate for their needs.

Workforce 41 Determine the adequacy of the current mental health workforce to meet the needs of the system’s clients.

Accountability 42 Establish and utilize performance measures to promote accountability among systems administrators, funders, and providers.

Elements of an Effective Mental

Health System

Advocacy 43 Build awareness of the need for high quality, comprehensive services and of the impact of stigma and discriminatory policies on access to them.

Identifying Outcome

Measures 44 Identify outcome measures that will enable policymakers to assess the value and efficacy of the initiative.

Collecting Data 45 Ensure mechanisms are in place to capture data consistent with the process and outcome measures identified.

Measuring and Evaluating Outcomes

Disseminating

Findings 46 Publicize program successes as appropriate to the media, public, and appropriators.

IV. USING THE REPORT AND NEXT STEPS

The Consensus Project Report should be used as a compendium of ideas that will help individuals identify and frame practices and programs that will improve the response to people with mental illness who are in contact with—or at risk of becoming involved with—the criminal justice system.

Deciding where to start—especially when familiar with the existing ob- stacles to improving the systems—is difficult. In more than one community, reform efforts have been derailed before getting underway because those in- volved could not decide where to begin. Similarly, attempting to implement many, if not all, of the policy statements in this report could overwhelm a com- munity.

The single most significant common denominator shared among commu- nities that have successfully improved the criminal justice and mental health systems’ response to people with mental illness is that each started with some degree of cooperation between at least two key stakeholders—one from the crimi- nal justice system and the other from the mental health system.

Indeed, the Consensus Project report reflects, on a national level, the value

of substantive, bipartisan, cross-system dialogue regarding mental health is-

sues as they relate to the criminal justice system. At a minimum, such discus-

sions should be replicated in communities across the country. Where those

discussions have already begun, agents of change should capitalize on the win-

dow of opportunity that now exists. The lives of people with mental illness,

their loved ones, and the health and safety of communities in general depend

on it.

The Criminal Justice/

Mental Health Consensus

Project

he Criminal Justice/Mental Health Consensus Project is a broad-based, na- tional effort to improve the response to people with mental illness who come into contact (or are at risk of coming into contact) with the criminal justice system. This report pro- vides policymakers, practitioners, advocates, and others determined to address this issue with an array of options and ideas, many of which have emerged in communities across the country.

This report has a broad target audience best characterized as “agents of change.” Defined as a wide range of leaders in communities and states, change agents may be state elected officials such as legislators or appointed administrators and their staffs who can consider and address the broad policy issues that have profound implications at the com- munity level. Because this is a community prob- lem, however, the change agents must also include a wide range of community players, starting with those most closely affected by the problem. They can use the recommendations found in this report

to strengthen community structures, and they can work with policymakers to ensure that solutions they craft are practical and effective.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of this re- port is that it reflects a consensus among the stake- holders in the criminal justice and mental health system. Police professionals, district attorneys, pub- lic defenders, judges, state corrections directors and jail administrators, community corrections officials, state mental health directors, local mental health and substance abuse treatment providers, clinicians, crime victims, consumers, mental health advocates, and others have all had input into the report. Leg- islators, policymakers, practitioners, and other agents of change can champion and implement the detailed recommendations in this report knowing that each has been developed and approved by ex- perts from an extraordinarily diverse range of per- spectives who work in and administer the depart- ments, agencies, and organizations trying every day to address the needs of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system.

T

What, exactly, is the problem? How did it de- velop? Who can fix it? What can they do? And where do they start? This report addresses these questions. State and local government officials and community leaders can use the policy statements provided in this report to get beyond discussing the issue and to begin developing initiatives that will address the problem. Furthermore, the report en- ables agents of change to cite programs and prac- tices that demonstrate that there are in fact juris- dictions that have already taken steps to implement a particular policy statement.

Having all of this information in one document,

which reflects countless hours of counsel from over

100 of the most respected criminal justice and men-

tal health practitioners and policymakers in the

United States, is unprecedented. While this report

by itself cannot change a community or system, it

is an extraordinary resource in the hands of a per-

son committed to improving the criminal justice

system's response to people with mental illness.

THE PROBLEM

People with mental illness are significantly overrepresented among the segment of the population in contact with the criminal justice system. Approxi- mately 5 percent of the U.S. population has a serious mental illness.

The U.S.

Department of Justice reported in 1999, however, that about 16 percent of the population in prison or jail has a serious mental illness.

Of the 10 million people booked into U.S. jails in 1997, at least 700,000 had a serious mental illness; approximately three-quarters of those individuals had a co-occurring substance abuse disorder.

A study conducted in New York State found that men involved in the public mental health system over a five-year period were four times as likely to be incarcerated as men in the general population; for women, the ratio was six to one.

Impact of the Problem on People and Systems

How elected officials and the public understand mental illness as it relates to the criminal justice system often is informed by newspaper and television headlines, which typically focus only on the most egregious manifestations of the problem: a screwdriver-wielding woman with mental illness shot dead by officers who subsequently tell of being frightened and confused themselves; a crime victim outraged that, before assaulting her, a person with a history of untreated mental illness bounced between community mental health centers, state hospitals, and the local jail.

Although these tragedies sometimes drive policymaking, they are not the cases involving mental illness most familiar to police officers, prosecutors, de- fense attorneys, judges, corrections administrators, parole and probation offic- ers, and other criminal justice personnel. These criminal justice practitioners are all too familiar with the following scenarios:

“

A police officer returns countless times to a house or street corner in response to a call for assistance involving the same person with a his- tory of mental illness; each time, the officer is unable to link the person to treatment.

“

Month after month, a prosecutor charges the same person with com- mitting a different public nuisance crime, and, each time, the defen- dant with mental illness pleads guilty to time served.

1. R. C. Kessler et al., “A Methodology for Estimating the 12-Month Prevalence of Serious Mental Illness,” In Mental Health United States 1999, edited by R.W. Manderscheid and M.J. Henderson, Rockville, MD, Center for Mental Health Services.

2. Paula. M. Ditton, Mental Health Treatment of Inmates and Probationers, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Depart- ment of Justice, July 1999. The prevalence statistic for mental illness in U.S. jails and prisons was gathered through a combination of inmate self-reporting and mental health treatment history. Inmates in the sample qualified as having a mental illness if they met one of the following two

criteria: “They reported a current mental or emotional condition, or they reported an overnight stay in a mental hospital or treat- ment program.” To account for inmate underreporting of their mental health problems, admission to a mental hospital was in- cluded as a measure of mental illness. Ten percent of inmates reported a current mental condition and an additional six percent did not report a condition but had stayed overnight in a mental hospital or treatment program.

3. Linda Teplin and Karen Abram, “Co-Occurring Disorders among Mentally Ill Jail Detainees: Implications for Public Policy,”

American Psychologist 46:10, October 1991, pp. 1036-45.

“

Jail and prison administrators watch their systems swell with these individuals, who spin through the revolving door of the institution. Cor- rections officials’ job is to keep these inmates alive, even if that means isolating them in administrative segregation with no outside contact for weeks on end. When the release date comes around, freedom for many prisoners is only temporary, unless they are among the few for whom reentry has meant planning and linkage with community supports.

“

A parole officer already struggling with an overwhelming caseload is assigned an individual with mental illness released from prison; the officer receives only limited support from the community-based mental health program. The parolee is rearrested and returned to prison when he commits a new crime—urinating on a street corner and making lewd gestures to frightened people passing by—displaying in public the symp- toms of his untreated mental illness.

Each of these situations frustrates criminal justice officials; they know they are failing the person who suffers from mental illness and his or her loved ones.

Encounters between people with mental illness and law enforcement sometimes end in violence, jeopardizing the safety of consumers and officers. Once incar- cerated, people with mental illness become especially vulnerable to assault or other forms of intimidation by predatory inmates.

People with mental illness also tend to decompensate in prisons and jails—environments that exacerbate the symptoms of mental illness—and there they are at especial risk of harming themselves or others. Upon their return to the communities they left behind during their incarceration, they discover that their criminal records have, in many cases, made it even harder to obtain access to treatment.

Criminal justice officials may lose sight, however, of the lives these indi- viduals lead. These are sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, who struggle daily to fend off symptoms of mental illness. Without adequate treatment, their disease may disable them significantly. Some experience delusions and may be convinced that strangers are planning to attack them. In other cases, depres- sion immobilizes them; overcome with a sense of hopelessness, their physical strength deteriorates. Many of them are people who’ve spent years trying to mask torments or hallucinations with alcohol or any street drug they could scrape together enough money to buy and now are dependent on these sub- stances to avoid withdrawal states and further decompensation. Often, their

4. Judith F. Cox, Pamela C. Morschauser, Steven Banks, James L. Stone, “A Five-Year Population Study of Persons Involved in the Mental Health and Local Correctional Sys- tems,” Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research 28:2, May 2001, pp. 177-87. This study used data from the mental health and criminal justice systems of 25 upstate New York counties. The study defines individuals who have been in the public mental health system as having been in a state-run psychiatric inpatient facility or a local psychiat- ric inpatient facility, or having received mental health ser- vices from a local, general hospital using Medicaid cover-

5. See testimony of Reginald Wilkinson, then vice presi- dent, Association of State Correctional Administrators and director, Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, before the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, oversight hearing on “The Impact of the Mentally Ill on the Criminal Justice System,” September 21, 2000, available at:

www.house.gov/judiciary/wilk0921.htm .

"Inmates, families, guards, judges, prosecutors and police are in unique agree- ment that our broken sys- tem of punting the most seriously mentally ill to the criminal justice system must be fixed."

U.S. CONGRESSMAN TED STRICKLAND Ohio

Source: U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. The Impact of the Men- tally Ill on the Criminal Justice System. 107th Congress, Septem- ber 21, 2001