Courts
Every year, more than 15 million criminal cases enter U.S. state courts with approximately 10 million of those cases leading to jail admission; about 20 percent of those individuals who are admitted have a serious mental illness.
People working in courts—such as judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and court administrators—oversee critical initiatives that can serve to identify people with mental health conditions or co-occurring substance use disorders, connect them to treatment, and, when appropriate, divert them to community-based supports. JMHCP supports initiatives such as court-based diversion programs, treatment courts, prosecution-led diversion efforts, and much more. These initiatives often combine court supervision with community-based treatment services, usually in place of incarceration.
Propelling Change: A Prosecutor Call to Action
Collaboration Spotlight
As a judge, I have been uniquely positioned to bring criminal justice and clinical professionals together with community partners to develop and implement behavioral health diversion programs that offer hope and recovery to people whose lives have been devastated by addiction and mental illness. At the same time, these efforts promote public safety by dramatically reducing the likelihood that they will reoffend. The public safety and quality of life benefits of these programs to the individuals, their families, and the community can’t be overstated.
Judge Janet Holmgren, 17th Circuit Court, Illinois
Selected Resources
Frequently Asked Questions: A Look into Court-Based Behavioral Health Diversion Interventions
Correctional Facilities
Key Staff
Hallie Fader-Towe
Deputy Division Director, Behavioral Health
Hallie Fader-Towe works with local and state policymakers to craft policies, processes, and programs that will work best for their jurisdictions. In her positions with the CSG Justice Center, she has worked with jurisdictions around the country on collaborative, data-driven planning and implementation efforts to address criminal justice functions from initial detention through reentry, including a focus on people with mental illnesses. She has also managed the development of training materials on mental health courts and on judicial responses to the prevalence of individuals with mental illnesses involved with the criminal justice system. She has written on dispute systems design for state trial courts, pretrial responses to people with mental illnesses, information sharing between criminal justice and mental health systems, and mental health court design and implementation. Before joining the CSG Justice Center, she was a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York. Hallie received a BA from Brown University and a JD from Harvard Law School.
Steven Diehl
Senior Policy Analyst, Behavioral Health
Steven Diehl provides training and technical assistance under the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program for projects focused on the implementation of specialty courts. Prior to joining the CSG Justice Center, he served as the 17th Judicial District Treatment Courts coordinator in Central Pennsylvania. There, he oversaw 8 Specialty Court Programs, which also served as National Mentor Court Programs under the direction of the National Drug Court Institute and the U.S. Department of Justice. Steven earned his BS in criminal justice from York College of Pennsylvania and his MS in criminal justice administration with a concentration in justice administration from Loyola University New Orleans.
Ethan Kelly
Policy Analyst, Behavioral Health
Ethan Kelly provides technical assistance to grantees working with people who have co-occurring substance addictions and mental illnesses and are involved in the criminal justice system. Prior to joining the CSG Justice Center, Ethan was a clinical supervisor and trainer for behavioral health/criminal justice programs, managing a pretrial mental health program and providing trainings on mental health, critical incident stress management, and criminogenic risk. He earned his BSW from Southern Connecticut State University and his MSW from Fordham University.