Current Trends American Court Management

Court Management Trends

Specialty courts were established at the Eighth Judicial District Courts with thirteen court programs that target individuals with various intercepts with the criminal justice system. Specialty courts are founded on the treatment court model that offers mental health and substance abuse treatments to reduce recidivism risk rates and provide support for involved individuals to acquire skills and advance their education. According to one’s needs, all the specialty courts require individual or group participation in substance abuse and mental health counseling. The programs also involve randomized tests for drug or alcohol, probation supervision, regular court status checks, and collaboration in case management.

Specialty court programs’ utility lies in the long-term objective to save on costs by reducing the public cost incurred while monitoring, detaining, and prosecuting criminal activity following state and federal laws. Specialty courts were formed under the Community Mental Health Centers Act, which led to the closure of state psychiatric hospitals and replaced it with the provision of complementary services at the community level (“Mental Health Courts - collaborative justice,” 2022). Specialty courts are founded on two core ideas: therapeutic jurisprudence and restorative justice. Therapeutic jurisprudence refers to improving outcomes for the people facing incarceration, and therapeutic jurisprudence refers to improving outcomes for the individuals facing alignment.

Specialty courts expanded to include Mental Health Courts, Transitional Aged Youth Drug Court, Juvenile Drug Court, Veteran’s Treatment Court, Co-Occurring Disorders Court, Family Treatment Court, and Felony DUI Court. This specialty court program establishes criteria that rely on primary eligibility for individuals to participate, such as a lack of a violent history. The National Association of Drug Court Professionals (NADCP) reported that for each $1.00 invested in the Special Courts, the public expense falls by $3.36 in avoided criminal justice costs. Other areas of the efficacy of special courts are the decline in the public expense by $27.00 for each dollar spent on reducing victimization and healthcare service utilization expenses (Winter, 2022). In the traditional court system, restoration involved financial restitution to the victim by the offender and the incarceration of offenders. However, the current approach to restorative justice aims to alleviate harm and bring transformation for all parties involved. In specialty courts, restorative justice offers an array of options ideal for an individual’s issues. Consequently, judges must transition from functioning as adjudicators to facilitators of treatment.

Mental Health Courts

The first mental health court had been set up in the late 20th century in Broward County, Florida. By 2010, more than 200 mental health courts in operation across the U.S. were problem-solving oriented with measures and programs to engage mentally ill patients in treatment rather than incarceration (Davis & Cates, 2017). The California mental health courts are collaborative and provide specific services and treatment to defendants diagnosed with mental health illnesses. The objective of mental health specialty courts in California is to support participants’ saucerful transition into society and decrease recidivism, increase public safety, and enhance individuals’ quality of life.

Mental Health Courts eligibility criteria not only require the defendants to have a combined criminal charge and mental illness but other factors, such as the risk associated with admission or suitability to the program and services offered. According to Wolff et al. (2011), eligibility requires the defendants to have a mental illness that may be chronic, persistent, or serious and connected with non-violent criminal charges. Participation in these courts is voluntary, and the defendant must consent to participate in the program. This follows Marsy’s Law, California Constitution article I, § 28, section (b), which gives the defendants the right to be treated with dignity, fairness, and privacy to be free from intimidation. The defendants are also afforded the right to reasonably confer with the prosecuting agency on matters regarding the extradition of the defendant (Bonta, 2022). The defendants are screened and referred to a mental health court, which should be done soon as the arrest is made to ensure interventions begin early. The screening process is also critical for determining whether the mental health courts are equipped with the necessary resources to support the defendant’s treatment. The defendants can be referred to a mental health court by defense attorneys, a family member, a judge, jail personnel, a police officer, or a treatment provider.

The information used to determine a defendant’s eligibility may be screened formally by the court or a case coordinator who has mental health experience but not physicians necessarily. The information may be formalized or informal and specific to the case or team. The issues of motivation, treatability, and support from victims and the defense attorney may independently determine a client’s selection (Wolff et al., 2011). In California, mental health courts rely on a case management structure based on individual accountability and intensive monitoring. Case management is supervised by professionals that typically involve members of the justice system and mental health providers. The role of judges is to supervise the process and facilitate collaboration among team members.

The length and eligibility for different programs under mental health courts are determined by the defendant’s mental illness, the seriousness of their offense, and programs or resources available for treatment. For example, Orange country has short-term and long-term interventions designed to cater to different requirements among defendants. For example, the Community Services and Supports (CSS) receives 76% of the mental health services fund since it offers comprehensive mental illness treatment for individuals of all ages and who live with serious emotional disturbances (Karuga et al., 2019). CSS is designed to facilitate access to services, enhance the quality of services, promote integrated collaboration, and optimize outcomes.

The CSS program plan engages the participants for three years. The program includes mental health treatment, housing, and workforce education and training. The mental health treatment may involve the assignment to a physiatry facility and participation in mental health: lived exercise program, which requires participants to attend webinars periodically as they are offered to learn some life skills (Felton et al., 2010). The housing program, such as the Mental Health Adult and Older Adult Residential Facilities, accommodate elderly individuals diagnosed with a mental illness within the program’s facilities until they are well enough to reintegrate into the society. The program collaborates with the county behavioral health to serve the justice-involved populations.

The individuals in the program who are capable of working are required to seek employment opportunities in the areas of their training or register into a vocational training program that is assisted with seeking employment opportunities upon completion. After completing this stage, they proceed into the transition program where monitoring is remote and less intense for a year or two. Therefore, the program may extend to five years before full reintegration into the community in severe cases of mental illness. According to Andrews (2015), the success rate of offenders who undergo mental health court programs is 72%, which means the rate of recidivism declines by 72% as opposed to that of those who do not undergo the process at a rate of 20%. The success of the mental health courts is pertinent to the integration of offenders into the community at a lower cost and by using more effective measures. The objectives of such programs are determined by a tribunal or by the judge to terminate the program ultimately and are evidence of the efficacy of this approach.