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Risk principle: Offenders differ in their risk of recidivism, therefore different kinds of interventions are appropriate. Complex (and expensive) interventions may be unreasonable when the risk is low. On the other hand, for high-risk offenders intensive interventions are likely necessary to induce any kind of change.
Mental health courts share characteristics with crisis intervention teams, jail diversion programs, specialized probation and parole caseloads, and a host of other collaborative initiatives intended to address the significant overrepresentation of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system.
Mental health courts: Mental health courts link offenders who would ordinarily be prison-bound to long-term community-based treatment. They rely on mental health assessments, individualized treatment plans, and ongoing judicial monitoring to address both the mental health needs of offenders and public safety concerns of communities.
Risk assessment, as with any attempt to understand future behavior, is very difficult, especially because "risk" isn't always defined the same way in different legal settings. There is a wide research literature on risk assessment, but the information is varied and sometimes contradictory, and bias can play a role in risk assessment. [60]
A psychiatric assessment, or psychological screening, is the process of gathering information about a person within a psychiatric service, with the purpose of making a diagnosis. The assessment is usually the first stage of a treatment process, but psychiatric assessments may also be used for various legal purposes.
According to the COMPAS Practitioner's Guide, the scales were designed using behavioral and psychological constructs "of very high relevance to recidivism and criminal careers." [5] Pretrial release risk scale Pretrial risk is a measure of the potential for an individual to fail to appear and/or to commit new felonies while on release.
The American Bar Association's Criminal Justice Mental Health Standards stated in 1994 that the issue of a defendant's current mental incompetence is the single most important issue in the criminal mental health field, noting that an estimated 24,000 to 60,000 forensic evaluations of a criminal defendant's competency to stand trial were ...
Diversion can ensure that people with mental health problems who enter (or are at risk of entering) the criminal justice system are identified and provided with appropriate mental health services, treatment, and any other support they need.