Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

Study: Mental health courts save money

|
|
 
  
Published: March. 1, 2007 at 6:36 PM

PITTSBURGH, March 1 (UPI) -- Special courts for mentally ill people that deal out treatment for non-serious crimes save taxpayers money, a new U.S. study says.

The study of the Allegheny County Mental Health Court in Pittsburgh found that participants received more mental-health services and spent fewer days in jail than they might have if they had been sentenced in the criminal court.

They also spent fewer days in jail than they spent related to a prior arrest, according to the study by the RAND Corporation for the Council of State Governments Research Center.

By the second year after sentencing by a mental-health court, taxpayers had recouped the cost of treatment, the study found.

The courts, which seek to get mentally ill defendants the disease and drug-dependence treatment they need, are an increasingly common phenomenon, the authors write. In 1997 there were only four such courts in the United States, but there are now 120.

Advocates say the courts provide a more appropriate and cost-effective alternative for dealing with the 16 percent of people in jails who have a serious mental illness.

© 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Protesters, police clash at NATO summit Notable deaths of 2012 2012 Billboard Music Awards
The 137th Preakness Stakes Annual Solar eclipse occurs in U.S. Chen Guangcheng arrives in the U.S.
Additional Health News Stories
1 of 29
Members of the Army's Old Guard place flags at Arlington National Ceremtery
View Caption
U.S. flags are seen in the rucksack of a soldier with the Army's 3d U.S. Infantry Regiment, The Old Guard, as he places flags at gravesites in Arlington National Cemetery as part of the Flags-In Memorial Day ceremony on May 24, 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. American flags were placed at each of the more than 220,000 grave markers in honor of those who served and Memorial Day. UPI/Kevin Dietshc
fark
The Lord is just in all his ways: redlight runner who hit nun has iPhone stolen by passerby offering...
Can you order top shelf hookers at the Travelodge? It's more likely than you think. (Not safe for...
70 years ago today Czech partisans made Hitler very angry
Newly upgraded to a tropical storm and now Beryling in on Southeast coast
Man tries, fails to buy meal at Denny's with $1 and bag of pot. You'd think if there was anywhere...
Photoshop this multicolored specimen having a snack