Legal News

After Two Months, Montco Behavioral Health Court Expands

By Brian Harris

By Amaris Elliott-Engel
Of the Legal Staff

Montgomery County's new court program for defendants with mental illnesses or other behavioral issues has increased in size from four defendants to 14 defendants after two months in operation.

After a year-and-a-half of planning, the behavioral health court program started in early July with a focus on defendants with mental illnesses or other behavioral health problems who are incarcerated in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility. As of the end of last month, only two women and two men were in the program, but the program has now admitted 10 more people.

Montgomery County Common Pleas Judge Joseph A. Smyth said in a press conference last week that he was interested in focusing the court on inmates because inmates with severe mental illnesses stay in jail 150 days longer on average than other inmates. Once the defendants get out of jail, they report to the weekly court sessions on Monday afternoons for six months. The program's goal is for defendants who are doing well after six months to move to reporting to court every other week for six months and then move to reporting to court every three to four weeks for the final period of time in the court.

During a session of the behavioral health court Aug. 31, each of the four defendants was asked to stay to the end of the program in order to support each other. Each defendant was given a Wawa gift card as a reward for keeping on his or her treatment plan for the past month.

One defendant who had slipped up was required by Smyth to write an essay on the effects of marijuana on the particular medication he is on as well as to serve three community service days.

The program started off with a planning grant from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. The court stakeholders are waiting to learn if the court will receive a PCCD operations grant that would include a staff coordinator for the behavioral health court.

The court is being run on the "overtime" hours people from the county's behavioral health, probation, correctional facility and court systems invest in the program, Smyth said.

Full post as published by The Legal Intelligencer Blog on September 21, 2009 (boomark / email).