The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S.
Department of Justice and prepared the following final report:
Document Title:
An Evaluation of the Bureau of Justice
Assistance Mental Health Court Initiative
Author(s):
Henry J. Steadman ; Allison D. Redlich
Document No.:
213136
Date Received:
February 2006
Award Number:
2003-DD-BX-1012
This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Opinions or points of view expressed are those
of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect
the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.
National Institute of Justice
FINAL REPORT
An Evaluation of the Bureau of Justice Assistance
Mental Health Court Initiative
Revised: December 12, 2005
Henry J. Steadman, Ph.D.: Principal Investigator
Policy Research Associates, Inc.
345 Delaware Avenue
Delmar, NY 12054
518-439-7415 (tel)
518-439-7612 (fax)
email: hsteadman@prainc.com
Allison D. Redlich, Ph.D.: Project Director
Policy Research Associates, Inc.
Delmar, NY 12054
This project was supported under award number 2003-DD-BX-1012 from the National
Institute of Justice (NIJ), Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points
of view in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
official position of the U.S. Department of Justice.
1
An Evaluation of the Bureau of Justice Assistance
Mental Health Court Initiative
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
An important new development in court administration and diversion programs for
defendants with mental illness is the mental health court (MHC, Petrila, 2003). MHCs are
criminal courts based on the notion of therapeutic jurisprudence (Winick & Wexler, 2003) that
hear cases of individuals with mental illness charged with crimes. They are often proposed as a
strategy to stop the revolving door o