Courts

The past two decades have enhanced our understanding of pretrial risk. We now know that most individuals with pending criminal cases make scheduled court appearances and remain arrest-free as they await trial. When missed court dates occur, they often are not intentional abscondence but rather the result of unintentional or unavoidable circumstances. Further, most new cases filed against pretrial defendants involve misdemeanors and lower-level felony charges, not violent crimes.

However, while we recognize the infrequent and dynamic nature of pretrial misconduct, most justice systems define, and measure missed court appearances using the dated and overly broad “failure to appear” descriptor and view new case filings mostly as serious offenses affecting public safety. The result is an overestimation of defendant risk and overly punitive responses to misconduct.

"This white paper is based on a series of interviews, buttressed by personal observations, of key players in half a dozen jurisdictions where Veterans Treatment Courts have been operating with marked success. Neither graphs nor charts nor a plethora of statistics are employed to illustrate the protocols and practices of these therapeutic courts. Instead, proponents and practitioners intimately involved in the founding and operation of these courts relate how they are “the right thing to do” for combat veterans who commit certain crimes that are associated with the lingering legacy of their wartime experiences.

Juvenile Mental Health Courts (JMHCs) provide case management and support to youth in the juvenile justice system with behavioral health needs.