Assault-on-Law-Enforcement: The Complications of Charges for Individuals on Mental Health Court Dockets

Mental health courts divert individuals with serious mental illness away from imprisonment into community-based treatment and supervision. Early research indicates that such treatment contracts can reduce recidivism and provide various other benefits. Aspects of eligibility for this diversion option are still under-researched.

To explore the nature of alleged offences against people accepted into mental health courts (on mental health court dockets), and their demographic and mental health context and their perceived relevance to eligibility for such diversion.

We used a sequential mixed-methods design in which semi-structured interviews were conducted after completion of quantitative data collection from the State of Virginia's behavioural and therapeutic court docket cases in 2022-2023. The State provides open online data on demographics and the nature of alleged offences for all mental health court-adjudicated cases. The qualitative part of the study involved semi-structured interviews with behavioural health docket coordinators across Virginia about their perceptions of how the nature of alleged criminal offences affects potential mental health court participation and the dynamics with other disciplines in the system that may be relevant to decision-making here.

The most commonly alleged offence was assault-on-law-enforcement officers, an offence that, if convicted, carries a mandatory prison sentence. This was disproportionately charged against Black men. Qualitative findings revealed that the coordinators viewed assault-on-law-enforcement officers as likely to have occurred when defendants were in a state of mental health crisis, with resultant perceptions of law enforcement as a threat, and thus, usually, a mental health solution was likely to be in the best interests of all parties. There was local variation in processing, but a sense that local prosecutors hold disproportionate power, and defence lawyers are constrained by ideological advice rather than knowledge of optimal outcomes for their client.

The punitive 6-month mandatory minimum jail term that must follow a conviction for an assault-on-law-enforcement officer may put both justice and safety at risk. Black men are disproportionately likely to be subject to such allegations, suggesting that disadvantage at every level of health and justice has reached this point. When mental disorder is manifestly a relevant factor in alleged offending, it makes sense to order disposals that will maximise restoration of health and social functioning in order to safeguard such officers, the wider community and the alleged offender. At present, the structured diversion option is only open in Virginia when a mental health court is willing to accept violent felony charges. We recommend wider dissemination of data on mental health court outcomes, including longer-term outcomes, to law enforcers and politicians with a view to change in the relevant law.