Best Practices for the Mentally Ill in the Criminal Justice System

Abstract

The information gathered for this book began as a project for the local Broward County, Florida Sheriff, who wanted to know what the literature stated were the best practices for mentally ill persons who were arrested and held in the County Jail. At the time, he was thinking about the possibility of building a mental health facility given the expanding number of detainees with mental health problems. As we began to survey the literature, it became clear that most of the research was about programs for justice-involved people in the prisons, not the jails and detention centers, where the movement in and out is constant and unpredictable. Therefore, the information in this book is an integration of the literature we found and adapted to jails, integrating it with interviews we conducted with the jail, courtroom, and community staff and stakeholders. The questions we asked and surveys we distributed are in the Appendix. The resultant data were analyzed using a qualitative method (conventional content analysis) in order to identify themes and patterns to develop a map for best practices. This book integrates the best practice as defined in the literature, our knowledge about clinical treatment of the mentally ill, together with our interview findings from the community to develop what we believe is the current Best Practices Model (BPM). We cannot provide a blueprint for all jurisdictions here; however, we do attempt to share the integration of the literature and practice with our readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)