Developing criminal justice liaison and diversion services: Research priorities and international learning

摘要

Criminal justice liaison and diversion services for people with mental health problems have been developing in many countries at least since the 1990s. The greatest expansion has taken place in the form of mental health courts in the USA, where research initiatives have been linked to service developments from an early stage, facilitated by the injection of substantial funds by the Clinton government (Steadman et al., 2001). The development of such services comes at a time when the number of people in prisons has been rising across the world yet seems set to rise further (Walmsley, 2011). Meanwhile, high rates of physical and mental health problems are well established among prisoners as a group (Fazel and Baillargeon, 2011; Fazel and Seewald 2012).