Report Title:

Mental Health Court

Description:

Appropriates $      in FY 2003-2004 and FY 2004-2005 to the judiciary to establish a mental health court in Hawaii.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

1674

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003

 

STATE OF HAWAII

 


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

relating to mental health.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that in a recent report, the Council of State Governments found that "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." It reported that many people with mental illnesses are overlooked, turned away, or intimidated by the mental health system and end up disconnected from community supports. As a result, people with mental illness often end up in the criminal justice system. A great many of the individuals arrested are charged with only minor offenses. For most, the underlying issue is their need for basic services and supports that public systems have failed to deliver in meaningful ways. Public safety is not protected when people who have mental illnesses are needlessly arrested for nuisance crimes, or if the mental illness at the root of a criminal act is exacerbated by a system designed for punishment, not treatment. Individual rights are violated when people with mental illnesses are denied treatment and subjected to more frequent arrests and harsher sentences than other offenders.

The criminal and juvenile justice systems are not the appropriate "front door" to access mental health care as jails have taken on the de facto role of today’s psychiatric institutions. Taxpayers’ resources are wasted on expensive and counterproductive incarceration instead of financing more appropriate and effective community mental health and supportive services. Police, court, and jail personnel are forced to devote inordinate amounts of time to arresting, processing, and incarcerating individuals with mental illnesses – a process that also diverts their attention from more serious crimes, defendants, and inmates.

A growing number of concerned communities have begun to respond to the immediate problem by establishing mental health courts to promote court-imposed treatment as a substitute for incarceration. Specialty mental health courts, when used for more serious offenses, and if they are only a part of a broad package of systemic reform, can play a productive role in a comprehensive strategy to break the cycle of poor treatment, worsening mental illness, escalating criminal behavior, and increasing arrest and incarceration. Mental health courts, by themselves, are not a panacea and are only part of the solution.

The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, in a paper issued in January, 2003, concluded regarding mental health courts:

(1) There is no single model of a mental health court. Each court operates under its own, mostly unwritten, rules and procedures and has its own way of addressing service issues. Many of the existing courts include practices that are unnecessarily burdensome to defendants, make it harder for them to reintegrate into the community, and may compromise their rights;

(2) Few of the courts are part of any comprehensive plan to address the underlying failure of the service system to reach and address effectively the needs of people at risk of arrest. Substantial numbers of mental health court participants are people who should not have been arrested in the first place, although some courts are beginning to accept defendants who are more appropriate for such a program, e.g., people who have committed serious felonies;

(3) Addressing the issues raised by the escalating number of contacts between individuals with serious mental illnesses and the criminal justice system requires a broad and comprehensive approach that should include mechanisms giving all police, prosecutors, and judges effective options for alternatives to incarceration. These options should be available to offenders with mental illnesses just as they are available to all other offenders, with reasonable accommodations provided as necessary to ensure fair access and improve opportunities for their successful completion when deciding these cases; and

(4) No program of alternative disposition – whether prosecutor-driven, court-based, within law enforcement or jail-based – can be effective unless the essential services and supports that individuals with serious mental illnesses need to live in the community are made available. Moreover, it is critical that these services exist in the community for everyone, not just offenders, and that supports not be withdrawn from others in need and merely redirected to those who have come in contact with the criminal justice system. Additional, specialized resources and programs are needed to reduce the risk of arrest for people with mental illnesses and the recidivism of those who have come into contact with the criminal justice system.

The Bazelon Center also concluded that three critical elements are needed in communities considering the establishment of mental health courts:

(1) There must be treatment and service resources in the programs to which offenders will be referred;

(2) There must be diversion programs at the time of arrest, at jail before booking, and at arraignment to keep the court from being overwhelmed by individuals whose offenses are minor and to prevent its becoming a routine point of entry to mental health services for individuals whose real problem is the limited availability of help through more appropriate channels; and

(3) The court's procedures should not have the effect of making a mental health court more coercive than a standard criminal court and more damaging to a defendant's future prospects for housing, employment, and health care.

The legislature further finds that in the past few years more than twenty-five communities have established some form of mental health court to process cases involving people with serious mental illnesses. Congress addressed the issue in 2000, passing America’s Law Enforcement and Mental Health Project Act, which makes federal funds available to local jurisdictions seeking to establish or expand mental health specialty courts and diversion programs. Mental health courts typically involve judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and other court personnel who have expressed an interest in or possess particular mental health expertise. The goals of these mental health courts are to: break the cycle of worsening mental illness and criminal behavior that begins with the failure of the community health system and is accelerated by the inadequacy of treatment in prisons and jails; and provide effective treatment options instead of the usual criminal sanctions for offenders with mental illnesses. However, effectively breaking the cycle of repeated contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems must start with expanded and more focused community-based services and supports.

Sometimes a single judge presides over a mental health court held once or twice a week or as often as necessary. Eligible defendants usually include people who appear to have a mental illness. Some courts also include people with developmental disabilities or head injuries. The courts typically have special court or pretrial-services personnel, who are responsible for developing treatment plans, and probation officers, who monitor defendants' compliance with the plans once incorporated into court orders. From the earliest stages of its development and continuing through implementation, a mental health court must coordinate not only with police, sheriff, and prosecution, but also with state and county service systems.

The purpose of this Act is to appropriate funds to the judiciary to establish a mental health court.

SECTION 2. There is appropriated out of the general revenues of the State of Hawaii the sum of $          , or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2003-2004, and the same sum, or so much thereof as may be necessary for fiscal year 2004-2005, to the judiciary for the establishment of a mental health court in Hawaii.

SECTION 3. The sums appropriated shall be expended by the administrative director of the courts for the purposes of this Act.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval, except that sections 2 and 3 shall take effect on July 1, 2003.

INTRODUCED BY:

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