Defendants with intellectual disabilities and mental health diagnoses: faring in a mental health court.
In mental health court, defendants with ID get more services yet end up with the same results.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team looked at one mental health court for a year. They counted how many defendants had intellectual disability. They noted what services each person got and how each case ended.
What they found
About 1 in every 9 defendants had intellectual disability. These defendants received more behavior plans and job help than the others. Still, their final court results looked the same as everyone else’s.
How this fits with other research
Johnson et al. (2009) saw the same over-representation in Australia. One third of their accused had low IQ, so the 11 % in the new study feels consistent.
Chiviacowsky et al. (2013) moved the lens from court to prison. They also found that extra services did not fix poor outcomes; people with ID still left sicker.
Luckett et al. (2002) seems to disagree. Their review says people with ID are under-represented in crime. The gap is about labels: T counts only proven crimes, while the court studies count anyone diverted before trial.
Why it matters
If you assess adults in mental health court, expect ID plus mental illness to be common. Extra behavior or vocational referrals alone will not change disposition. Track real outcomes like housing, employment, and rearrest, and add skills teaching that the court can see.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Begun in the late 1990s, mental health courts are specialty criminal courts developed to address the needs of persons with mental illness. METHODS: As many persons with intellectual disabilities (IDs) may overlap in the mental health court system, we used mental health court records to examine the phenomenology and outcomes of 224 defendants with and without co-occurring IDs in the mental health court. This study had two goals: (1) to examine the prevalence of defendants with IDs in the court and (2) to compare defendants with dual diagnoses with defendants with lone mental health disorders. RESULTS: Approximately 11% of defendants in the mental health court also had IDs. Compared with individuals with mental health disorders alone, individuals with dual diagnoses were more likely to be younger, male, African-American and less well-educated; these defendants were also more likely to show externalising, 'turning-against-others' symptoms, less likely to show internalising, 'turning-against-self' symptoms. Defendants with IDs (vs. those without) more often received behavioural, vocational rehabilitation and other services, although the two groups did not differ on most outcome variables. CONCLUSION: Directions for future research are discussed.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2012 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01422.x