Mental Health Courts: An Overview and Redefinition of Tasks and Goals‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION The explosion of mental health courts (MHCs) from just a handful in the late 1990s to over 150 today (1) has undoubtedly increased awareness of their existence. The initiation of MHCs required the melding of two professions with very different goals: the criminal justice field, which has historically worked to get people "out of jail and [back] on the streets," and the mental health system, which works to get them "off the streets and into treatment." (2) However, this melded approach is not entirely new. Similar cross-professional collaboration has already been used in other problem solving courts, including drug courts, domestic violence courts, and juvenile courts.