Studies suggest that up to 44% of individuals in the criminal/legal system have a severe mental illness (SMI), and although diversion programs have been established, a significant portion still end up incarcerated. The Sequential Intercept Model is a framework designed to reduce the overrepresentation of individuals with SMI in the criminal/legal system by identifying points of interception to prevent individuals from entering or moving further into the system. Although studies assess programs in each intercept, none has evaluated how individuals process through all intercepts. Using data from eight counties (N = 1,160), this exploratory study assesses criminal/legal involvement across each intercept between individuals identified with (n = 880) or without (n = 280) SMI. Findings indicate longer stays in jail, low rates of treatment engagement and enrollment in specialty courts, and poorer diversion outcomes for individuals with SMI. Recommendations for research, policies, and practices are proposed to advance Smart Decarceration efforts.
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The state court administration office provided data from two databases: one on specialty courts and the other through traditional court processing. The types of specialty courts in which an individual in the subsample participated were as follows: drug, mental health, swift and sure (for drug-involved probationers, see Hawken & Kleiman, 2009), family dependency, and veterans’ courts. The state agency returned yes/no responses for all individuals in the subsample regarding any specialty court participation.