A Meta-Analysis of Mental Health Courts: State of the Research and Recommendations

Mental health courts (MHCs) were developed in 1997 and have rapidly expanded to address the overrepresentation of individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice system. MHCs seek to divert offenders living with mental illness into appropriate community treatment by using a specialized court docket with a team-based, non-adversarial court staff to promote rehabilitation and address the underlying needs that exacerbate criminogenic risk factors and, in turn, criminal behavior. This meta-analysis sought to evaluate the current state of the research on MHCs and examine their impact on both criminal and clinical outcome measures. Stringent methodological inclusion criteria were employed to restrict analyses to high-quality studies. A total of 32 eligible studies were identified and 24 were included in quantitative analyses. Results show that, on average, MHCs have a small impact on recidivism (as measured by re-arrests, reconvictions, and time to re-arrest). MHCs were found to have a moderate effect on reduction of jail days. Clinical outcome data could not be quantitatively analyzed due to heterogeneity in data and measurement; qualitative review highlights the dearth of research in this domain and presents mixed results regarding MHCs’ effects. Future research should seek to improve methodological limitations highlighted in this study and evaluate mechanisms by which MHCs impact key outcome measures.Ph.D., Psychology -- Drexel University, 201