Mental Health Court

Deinstitutionalization

People who once would have been state mental hospital patients have become jail inmates now that those hospitals are closed. For background on mental health courts, read the Treatment Advocacy Center's white paper about deinstitutionalization.

Because of the work of NAMI Sacramento and key people like Sheriff John McGinness and Judge Talmadge Jones, we've succeeded in getting a mental health court in Sacramento County!

The following are relevant events, most recent first:

11/13/07 Governor Schwarzenegger vetoes bill to expand mental health courts statewide

Last month, our Governor vetoed a bill introduced by State Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, which would have formally authorized Superior Courts around California to develop mental health courts and would have created minimum standards for them. See the San Francisco Chronicle article.

11/13/07 San Francisco Behavioral Health Court Huge Success

Behavioral Health Court works, according to a UC San Francisco study published in September in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The study found that participants in the program, marking its fifth anniversary this month, are far less likely to commit future crimes than mentally ill criminals processed through the traditional justice system. See the San Francisco Chronicle article.

6/24/07 San Jose County Mental Health Court

Judge Steven Manley talks about an alternative to warehousing incapacitated mentally ill people our jails. See the video on the San Jose County Mental Health Court, covered by CBS News.

Spring 2007 Sacramento County Supervisors' Vote

County supervisors voted to fund the pilot mental health court.

3/9/07 Presentation to NAMI Sacramento

At our March 2007 General Meeting, Dr. Greg Sokolov and Judge Talmadge Jones gave a presentation on Mental Health Courts and the criminalization of people with mental illnesses.

See Presentations for more information.

1/23/07 Presentation to County Supervisors

Judge Talmadge Jones and Dr. Greg Sokolov gave a powerful presentation to the county supervisors on Tuesday, January 23, to encourage their support for the mental Health Court.  75% of the people with mental illness in our county jail have been in the County Mental Health Treatment Center before.  That is an extremely high recidivism rate and the county supervisors now understand how much money can be saved with this court, not to mention the lives.

To see the presentation:

• Click here
• Select "view video for 1/23/07."  The video screen will pop up. 
• Under "jump to" select
  "11:30am Mental Health Court."