Mental disorder, substance use and criminal justice contact : Systematic review of the scholarly literature

Despite the prevalence of mentally disordered people in the criminal justice system, and the difficulties that surround them, few services exist either in prisons or in the community to help identify and prevent these people from entering or remaining in the criminal justice system. [...] The results of the literature review show that the prevalence rates of a wide variety of “mental disorders” are disproportionately high in the criminal justice system. [...] It must be noted, though, that the increase in the number of mentally ill people in the criminal justice system may be as much or more a product of the increase in the use of substances by people with mental illnesses as it is due to the deinstitutionalization of mentally ill patients. [...] Then, due to the multiple and complex needs of a small but significant number of very difficult offenders, the fractionalization of the service and justice systems, and other factors, the costs and inefficiencies escalate. [...] In such programs, while diversion from the criminal justice system to the mental health system may occur, the focus of the program is on the identification of mentally ill accused and the provision of appropriate mental health services to them.