 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Neil Jordan, PhD1, Annette McGaha, PhD1, Kevin S Douglas, PhD1, Rhonda Ort, BSW1, and Roger Boothroyd, PhD2. (1) Dept of Mental Health Law & Policy, University of South Florida, 13301 Bruce B Downs Blvd, Tampa, FL 33612, 813-974-9243, njordan@fmhi.usf.edu, (2) Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida, 13301 North Bruce B. Downs Blvd, Tampa, FL 33612
The mental health court (MHC) in Broward County, Florida was established in 1997 to improve access to quality mental health services for persons with nonviolent misdemeanor charges. Early evaluations of this intervention have shown that persons who use the MHC have higher overall use of behavioral health services but lower use of high cost services such as crisis services and residential treatment. What is unknown is the extent to which increased access to services is also associated with a reduction in repeated jail involvement.
The intervention group (n = 116) consisted of English-speaking defendants of either gender, ages 18-64, whose cases were accepted by the MHC between December 1999 and April 2001. Our matched comparison group included 97 defendants from a non-MHC county who met the criteria for MHC jurisdiction in Broward County and reported a history of mental health problems.
Self-report data on the use of mental health, medical, and substance abuse services were obtained from subjects in both samples; these utilization data were supplemented by administrative data from Medicaid and Florida’s public behavioral health service utilization database. Legal system use and cost data included arrest and jail data, prison data, and court data. We used expenditures and management information data from legal system sources to determine unit costs.
Preliminary analyses suggest that users of the MHC had slightly higher total behavioral health services expenditures during the eight months after their MHC appearance. Conversely, it appears that MHC users had lower incarceration-related costs during the same time period.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.