Mental health courts have been established in many jurisdictions across the United States and internationally. These courts have been developed to address the needs of a special population within the larger criminal justice system. People with mental illness who commit criminal offenses and are incarcerated often face negative outcomes. Mental health courts are attempting to address those outcomes by diverting people with mental illness to special programs that connect them with community centers to address their basic needs as well as their mental illness symptomology. Mental health courts seek to reduce recidivism among this special population through addressing their needs within the community and avoiding incarceration time. By avoiding a repetition of incarceration for a population with a high recidivism rate, courts and corrections systems are able to save time and money.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.