Ideas for diverting people with mental illness from the criminal justice system

With the 85th Texas legislative session fast approaching, the House Select Committee on Mental Health continues to discuss the challenges of meeting growing demand for mental health services in the state.  But any effort to improve Texas's mental health infrastructure means we need to address the problems of people with mental health issues who are incarcerated.

Last year alone, over 55,000 people incarcerated in Texas received treatment in the public mental health system prior to their imprisonment.  Many others entered county jails without ever receiving a diagnosis, let alone treatment, for their persistent mental health issues.

But Texas's jails and prisons are no place for people with mental illness.  These institutions are designed to prioritize security, not treatment.  As a result, justice-involved Texans with mental illness may experience a decline in their mental health status while they are incarcerated -- a decline that can lead to dangerous outcomes, including increased recidivism, self-harm, and even suicide.

The over-incarceration of Texans with mental illness not only needlessly harms individuals' mental health, it also decreases public safety, drains county and state coffers, and strains the resources of jails and law enforcement agencies.  Fortunately, there is a better way forward.

This week, the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas released Prioritizing Treatment Over Punishment, a white paper on Texas's current efforts to divert people with mental illness away from the justice system.  This is the second in a series of policy briefs arising from the University of Houston's January symposium on "Police, Jails, and Vulnerable People," and intended to provide guidance to legislators and others looking for recommendations to improve the pretrial process.  (The first brief, released earlier this week, was focused on bail reform and pretrial release.)

This white paper explains the troubling link between our mental health and criminal justice systems.  It also discusses the sequential intercept model that is a best practice framework for thinking about the five different stages at which a person with mental illness can be diverted from the criminal justice system and be directed instead toward more clinically-appropriate services in their communities.  There are some widely praised examples in Texas of counties where these diversion strategies are being employed with great success, and the paper highlights those examples.

Prioritizing Treatment Over Punishment was written by LBJ graduate students Rachel Gandy and Erin Smith, under the supervision of Prof. Michele Deitch (yours truly) and Dr. Lynda Frost from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.   The paper is a great place for legislators and local officials to look for tried and tested ways to make better use of diversion strategies to keep people with mental illness out of the criminal justice system.