AEA 2009

Evaluation of Mental Health Courts: Lessons Learned From a Multi-site Longitudinal Study

Asil Ali Özdoğru and Henry J. Steadman

Mental health courts (MHC) are specialty courts within the legal system to facilitate the processing and diversion of people with mental health problems involved in the criminal justice system. MacArthur MHC evaluation study looked at four courts across the United States for three years in terms of public safety and mental health outcomes of defendants who were processed through MHCs and a similar comparison group who went through the regular court system. Preliminary analyses and our experiences show that adoption of a multi-site longitudinal evaluation strategy involving a wide range of stakeholders in an attempt to create change in multiple systems has methodological and analytical advantages as well as administrative and contextual challenges in the design and implementation of an evaluation study.

Keywords: Multisite evaluation, criminal justice programs, mental health courts, lessons learned

Citation: Özdoğru, A. A., & Steadman, H. J. (2009, November). Evaluation of Mental Health Courts: Lessons learned from a multi-site longitudinal study. Paper presented at the 23rd annual conference of the American Evaluation Association, Orlando, FL, USA.