Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

punishment, depending on compliance, while deliver-

ing the message of defendant’s accountability in the

agreement to participate. Unlike in the traditional

criminal court, the judge makes a special effort to

ensure noncompliant defendants understand the rea-

sons for and their responsibility in receiving sanctions.

At the end of a successful required treatment/

monitoring period, the defendant graduates from mental

health court, at which point charges are dismissed, pro-

bation ended, or sentence dropped. In cases of repeated

noncompliance, a mental health court may return the

defendant to traditional criminal court for processing in

preadjudication cases or for sentencing in postadjudica-

tion cases or to jail/prison for serving a prior sentence.

Evaluation

Descriptive articles on mental health courts tend to

praise their diversion success. Proposing the mecha-

nisms of change to be structure, monitoring, support,

and encouragement, as well as individualized mental

health treatment and services, they warn that inade-

quate community treatment and services limit a

court’s impact. Empirical studies report positive

results: Defendants obtain more treatment and offend

less while participating in the courts than in a compa-

rable prior period; and, compared with mentally ill

defendants in traditional criminal courts, they receive

more treatment and are no more likely to re-offend.

Evidence of reducing criminal recidivism more than

traditional criminal courts is unclear. Little research

exists about long-term effects and other effects such

as functioning and quality of life.

Virginia Aldigé Hiday

See alsoCivil Commitment; Conditional Release Programs;

Drug Courts; Institutionalization and Deinstitutionalization;

Mandated Community Treatment; Outpatient Commitment,

Involuntary; Police Interaction With Mentally Ill

Individuals; Procedural Justice; Substance Abuse

Treatment; Therapeutic Jurisprudence

Further Readings

Broner, N., Mayrl, D. W., & Landsberg, G. (2005). Outcomes

of mandated and nonmandated New York City jail

diversion for offenders with alcohol, drug, and mental

disorders. The Prison Journal, 85,18–49.

Cristy, A., Poythress, N. G., Boothroyd, R. A., Petrila, J., &

Mehra, S. (2005). Evaluating the efficiency and

community safety goals of the Broward County Mental

Health Court. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 23,1–17.

Moore, M. E., & Hiday, V. A. (2006). Mental health court

outcomes: A comparison of re-arrest and re-arrest severity

between mental health court and traditional court

participants. Law and Human Behavior, 30,659–674.

Winick, B. J., & Stefan, S. (Eds). (2005). Mental health

courts [Special issue]. Psychology, Public Policy and Law,

11 (4), 507–619.

MENTAL HEALTHLAW

This entry traces the origins of mental health law, dis-

cussing its transition from a medical model to a legal

model and considering recent trends. It examines sev-

eral of the major topics in the field, including civil and

criminal commitment, patients’ rights, and criminal

justice issues. It then discusses how therapeutic

jurisprudence, an emerging paradigm, has begun to

transform the field.

Mental health law was first conceived as a separate

field of law in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Before

then, laws certainly existed on various topics later sub-

sumed within mental health law. These included the

law governing civil commitment, guardianship, the

legal insanity defense, and incompetency to stand trial,

among others. The common law had clarified some of

the legal issues raised by mental illness, and there had

been some statutory developments, but it was not until

the U.S. Supreme Court began to constitutionalize the

issues that these disparate strands of legal doctrine

began to be thought of as a separate area of law. The

civil rights struggle of the 1950s and 1960s produced a

new breed of lawyers who championed the rights of

disadvantaged populations—racial minorities, criminal

defendants, prisoners, and those with mental illness as

well. The Supreme Court expanded constitutional

rights in the criminal justice system, in the prison, and

ultimately in the mental hospital. The Court overcame

its traditional reluctance to intervene in state processes

and brought the Constitution to state institutions that

previously had been beyond judicial scrutiny.

Transition From a Medical

Model to a Legal Model

The Court’s expansion of the rights of criminal defen-

dants and prisoners led civil liberties lawyers to argue

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