Mental Health Needs Criminal Justice

Introduction

The number of persons having the mental health problems has increased tremendously within the systems of criminal justice and therefore has the enormous health, fiscal and increase in human cost (Heckhausen, Wrosch and Schulz, 2019). Hence, the diversion of these persons with the mental problems out of the prisons and jails and having them in a more culturally and appropriately within the mental health care places which are community based (Wormith and Zidenberg, 2018). This becomes very important component to the state, local and national strategies so that people are provided with the support that are required and to eliminate the unnecessarily involvement in systems of criminal justices. To minimize the involvements, people who usually require the services should be supported and promotion of fairness within the systems of criminal justices (Adesegha, 2015). Also, the leaders that are responsible for the systems of mental health, defenders of public, and the officers in the law enforcement systems, personnel’s in the courts, prosecutors, legislators, advocates and the rest of individuals within the systems of criminal justices should create together the system which can improve the outcome for everyone (Klingemann and Storbjörk, 2016). This would involve; provision of support to people with the services, keeping these people away from the systems of criminal justice and juvenile and elimination of the practices that discriminate these individuals and the punishments.

The aim of this paper should be for the provision of the synthesis of the current practices within the systems of criminal justices for the diversion of the adults that have the disorders in their mental health.

The diversion has been tailored to the individuals who have been accused to certain crimes therefore; the voluntary treatment for mental health and the provision of services for support are the best alternatives for the sanction of criminal justice. According to Kalk, (2018), the programs for diversions usually target primarily the individuals having the unidentifiable disorders mentally and have committed the nonviolent, minor and the offences are chargeable. Typically the participation by people in these programs are usually voluntary (DeLuca, O’Connor and Yanos, 2018). The multiple points for diversion; the diversion to the individuals having the disorders mentally are able to take place in several points within the processes of criminal justices and involves: the pre arrest especially the diversions that are police based, the diversion before pretrial, the diversion that are court and jail based and the reentry in the community diversion (incarceration). These points usually presents the opportunity that redirect the individual with the disorders mentally towards the support and treatment services. It prevents the penetration further into the systems of criminal justice.

Through integration and coordination in multiple systems; all the programs for diversion have been designed so that they can improve the interaction and coordination for the already occurring mental health and the service social programs having the systems of criminal justice that provide the seamless and network continuously for the support that is able to achieve the recommended results, by obtaining the desired result; the programs for diversion usually have various interrelated achievements while they are relating to the individuals having the disorders mentally (Honegger, 2015). They include; prevention of the involvement of these individuals within the systems of criminal justices, minimizing incarceration, through sustaining and linking of affected individuals in support and treatment systems, reduction of recidivism, minimizing the symptoms of severity, increasing the compliance for treatments and improvements in their standard of life, minimizing the hospitalization for psychiatric and reducing costs for the administrative justice (Shapiro, 2016).

The diversions that are community based; the effective model for diversion starts with addiction and mental health systems of service delivery. Before the conduct of an individual person having the disorder mentally has been brought before the systems of criminal justice, the access of practices that are evidence based are very important to ensure the persons having the disorders mentally obtain the required support and treatment that can assist them in addressing their mental health problems (Nicholls, 2018). The required action should be taken within the level of community that would help in the minimization of interactions that involves the criminal justices through the provision of persons having the disorders mentally with the right services and tools that they would need for them to achieve their best state in the society, minimize occurrences to the crises of mental health and to have access, readily assistance and the support when in need (Sayce, 2015).

The effectively system of mental health should be one that provides the access to the comprehensive and the continuum that has been balanced for the support and services. According to Rynne and Harding, (2016). The approach that has the balanced care system should have the various flexible services that are provided primarily within the community, settings within the locality, which usually span non specialized and specialized sectors.

Dig deeper into Mental Health with our selection of articles.

References

• DeLuca, J. S., O’Connor, L. K., & Yanos, P. T. (2018). Assertive Community Treatment with People with Combined Mental Illness and Criminal Justice Involvement. In New Frontiers in Offender Treatment (pp. 227-249). Springer, Cham.
• Honegger, L. N. (2015). Does the evidence support the case for mental health courts? A review of the literature. Law and human behavior, 39(5), 478.
• Nicholls, T. L., Butler, A., Kendrick-Koch, L., Brink, J., Jones, R., & Simpson, A. I. (2018). Assessing and treating offenders with mental illness. In The Practice of Correctional Psychology (pp. 9-37). Springer, Cham.
• Wormith, J. S., & Zidenberg, A. M. (2018). The Historical Roots, Current Status, and Future Applications of the Risk-Need-Responsivity Model (RNR). In New Frontiers in Offender Treatment (pp. 11-41). Springer, Cham.
• Adesegha, J. (2015). The Role of Neuroscience and Psychology in the Criminal Justice System.
• Heckhausen, J., Wrosch, C., & Schulz, R. (2019). Agency and motivation in adulthood and old age. Annual review of psychology, 70, 191-217.
• Klingemann, H., & Storbjörk, J. (2016). The treatment response: Systemic features, paradigms and socio-cultural frameworks. The SAGE handbook of drug and alcohol studies–Social Science approaches. London, Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 260-86.
• Kalk, N. J., Robertson, J. R., Kidd, B., Day, E., Kelleher, M. J., Gilvarry, E., & Strang, J. (2018). Treatment and intervention for opiate dependence in the United Kingdom: lessons from triumph and failure. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 24(2), 183-200.
• Sayce, L. (2015). From psychiatric patient to citizen revisited. Macmillan International Higher Education.
• Shapiro, H. (2016). NPS comes of age: a UK overview.
• Rynne, J., & Harding, R. (2016). Private prisons. Handbook on Prisons, 149-168.