Making decisions about the processing of persons with serious mental disorder arrested for low-level offenses within the criminal justice system

Despite the central role that fines and other fiscal penalties play in systems of criminal justice, they have received relatively little scholarly attention. Court systems impose fines and other monetary sanctions in response to minor administrative and traffic offenses as well as for more serious criminal offenses. Monetary sanctions are intended to provide a deterrent punishment to reduce lawbreaking, to provide opportunities for accountability through financial restitution, to restore harm caused to victims of crime, and to fund the operation and administration of courts and criminal justice systems. Fines, fees, and other monetary sanctions are the most common form of punishment imposed by criminal justice systems. Most criminal sentences in the United States include financial penalties, and monetary sanctions are routinely imposed for less serious, and far more common, infractions such as traffic or parking violations. For many, paying a monetary sanction for a low-level violation is an annoyance. However, for the poor and people of color who are disproportionately likely to be subject to criminal justice system involvement, monetary sanctions can become a vehicle for expanded social inequality and increasingly severe criminal justice contact. Failure to pay legal financial obligations often results in court summons or license suspensions that may have attendant additional costs and may trigger incarceration. In the United States, the criminal justice system is heavily and routinely involved in the lives of low-income people of color. These already-existing biases, coupled with the deep poverty that is common in many communities, join to widen the net of criminal justice involvement by escalating low-level infractions to far more serious offenses when people are unable to pay. Despite the routine justification of monetary sanctions as less-severe penalties, if imposed without restriction on the poor, they are likely to magnify the inequality producing effects of criminal justice system involvement.

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Alternatives and Closing Remarks

Criminal Trials and Mental Disorders ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479804856.003.0013 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 312-318

Author(s):

Thomas L. Hafemeister

Keyword(s):

Mental Health ◽

Criminal Justice ◽

Mental Disorder ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Forensic Mental Health ◽

Mental Health Courts

The concluding chapter, Chapter 12, notes alternatives—such as diversion and mental health courts—to the commonly employed criminal justice proceedings that are being explored in the hope that they may be better suited for processing defendants with a mental disorder and thereby help to resolve some of the thorniest issues faced by the criminal justice system and society. It closes by reiterating the challenging nature of this field and stresses the important role that forensic mental health evaluators and their evaluations can play.

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Introduction

Criminal Trials and Mental Disorders ◽

10.18574/nyu/9781479804856.003.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-6

Author(s):

Thomas L. Hafemeister

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Mental Disorder ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Justice System ◽

Criminal Proceedings ◽

Criminal Offenders ◽

High Profile ◽

Special Rules

High-profile cases have drawn considerable attention to society’s ongoing struggle with how to approach and manage cases involving criminal offenders with a mental disorder. In these cases questions arise whether it is fair and just a) to conduct criminal proceedings while a defendant is experiencing a mental disorder and b) to hold individuals who were experiencing a mental disorder at the time of the crime fully accountable for their actions and punish them accordingly. What, if any, special rules and procedures should be employed? No set of issues poses a greater challenge to the criminal justice system than how to respond to individuals whose criminal actions can be attributed to a mental disorder or are experiencing a mental disorder during the course of their trial. Indeed, these cases illuminate who we are as a society.

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Forensic psychiatry

Oxford Handbook of Psychiatry ◽

10.1093/med/9780199693887.003.0017 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 669-724

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Mental Disorder ◽

Criminal Justice System ◽

Forensic Psychiatry ◽

Justice System ◽

Theoretical Background ◽

Sexual Offences ◽

System P ◽

Specific Disorders

Introduction The criminal justice system Crime Homicide Violence 1: theoretical background Violence 2 Sexual offences 1 Sexual offences 2 Stalking Other offences Mental disorder and offending 1: overview Mental disorder and offending 2: specific disorders and offending Assessing risk of violence Secure hospitals and units...

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