Press Room
The Consensus Project is coordinated by:
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| PROGRAM TITLE: |
Orange County Community Resource Court Program |
| AGENCY/ORGANIZATION: |
Orange County, NC |
| STATE: |
North Carolina |
| YEAR ESTABLISHED: |
2000 |
| LEVEL OF JURISDICTION: |
County |
| ISSUE AREA: |
Courts: Adjudication and Sentencing |
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Program Overview
Orange-Person-Chatham Area Program (OPC) is the community mental health provider for a three county area that includes Judicial District 15B, that encompasses Orange and Chatham counties in the State of North Carolina. On April 24, 2000 the Community Resource Court (CRC) formally started in Orange County in response to advocacy efforts of the Orange County chapter of NAMI to address the needs of citizens with mental illness in the local court system. A collaborative effort unfolded to commit local court personnel, treatment providers and law enforcement in a coordinated response to the mentally ill offender in an effort to address the needs of citizens who continued to fall through the cracks of our respective judicial and mental health service systems.
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Recent Dialogue
Question for
Everyone
I am conducting some research into the caseload size for the MHC Probation Officers for the King County District Court Mental Health Court. Relying on the contact information in the NAMI/ TAPA/ Consensus Survey of Mental Health Courts, I found your email and am posing the following questions:
1. Do you use probation officers to monitor/ supervise the court orders initiated in the MHC? 2. How many probation officers serve in your program? 3. How large is the PO caseload? 4. What is the typical length of jurisdic-tion in your MHC? 5. Do you serve felony (F) as well as misdemeanor (MD) offenders? 6. Can you provide a guestimate (absent a real estimate) of the proportion of F/ MD cases that you service? Thanks.
- Lois Smith
02/27/06 09:46 AM EST
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Program Description
The Orange County CRC is a non-due process court. It is a court system that is treatment based and integrates both mental health service systems and the judicial system. The principal goal of the CRC is to link offenders with mental health treatment to improve client functioning while reducing recidivism. The OPC Area Program assumes a larger more integrated role in the CRC by providing a large array of services to the CRC clients including but not limited to ACTT services, TASC services and Cross Disability Services. The Judicial system also provides a wide array of services to the client including but not limited to Pre-Trial Services, Probation services and the use of Public Defender services.
The CRC is a voluntary treatment alternative to the traditional district court case dispositions. To be eligible, offenders must have a mental health diagnosis or mental health treatment history, with priority given to defendants with SPMI (severe and persistent mental illness) who would be appropriate for long-term case management/treatment services by OPC; and must be agreeable to treatment. Additionally, the District Attorney must deem the client appropriate. One requirement of the District Attorney is that the client does not raise public safety concerns. Unlike most mental health courts that accept only misdemeanors, the CRC accepts defendants that are charged with felonies and even violent offenses; but in the latter case, victims must agree to their transfer from traditional criminal court to the CRC.
Legally eligible defendants are then referred to the next CRC session to be clinically screened by the CRC case manager and/or treatment providers. After the initial screening, the clients disposition is presented to the CRC Treatment Team. Unlike early mental health courts, defendants who are potential participants are rarely in jail at the time of this screening. Typically, the CRC case manager and/or the defendants counsel explains the operation of CRC and the option to voluntarily cooperate with treatment. The CRC case manager in collaboration with counsel obtains signed consents indicating the defendants voluntary participation. This decision is the beginning of the deferred prosecution agreement i.e., the exchange for dismissal of charges or a probationary sentence as a result of treatment engagement and participation. In addition to following the treatment plan, a defendant is required to appear in CRC every month for a minimum of six months for monitoring. At the end of the six-month period, if the defendant has met the criteria of the CRC Treatment Team, they are recommended for graduation. The cases are either dismissed or otherwise disposed by positive outcome i.e., Prayer for Judgement Continued or terminated successful from probation.
Outcome Data
ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY RESOURCE COURT 2002 STATISTICS
Total Cases Referred to CRC 77
Compliant 38 - 49%
(participants complied with recommended treatment for a minimum of 6 months and case(s) were disposed in CRC with positive legal outcomes for participants- considered successful by CRC Team)
Non-Compliant 25 33%
(offenders who opted to participate and initially engaged in treatment but did not consistently comply with treatment recommendations during the initial 6 months in CRC-cases were returned to regular court track for disposition)
Never Engaged 14 18%
(offenders who initially agreed to participate in CRC but never engaged in treatment-cases returned to regular court for disposition)
Disposition of Compliant Cases
Case(s) dismissed - 25
PJC 6
Supervised Probation (terminated successful) 4
Suspended Sentence (case closed-found in compliance) - 3
Demographics
Race/Gender
W/M 34%
B/M 34%
B/F 14%
W/F 11%
H/M 1%
I/M 1%
A/M 1%
A/F 1%
Age Range
less than 20 yrs.of age:2%
ages 20-29:27%
" 30-39:31%
" 40-49:21%
" 50-59:7%
age 60+ :7%
Active/Pending Cases as of December 2002:56
Challenges / Areas for Improvement Identified
In January of 2001, OPC Area Program was awarded funds through North Carolina Division of Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities and Substance Abuse Services as part of Federal Mental Health Block Grant to support a full-time case manager position designated solely for clients referred from CRC. This case manager screens potential participants for CRC and serves as a liaison between the court system and treatment providers in the community. The case manager maintains a caseload of CRC generated clients that are in need of case management support. The case manager links mental health treatment, residential services, housing, social and vocational support systems with the client.
In January 2002, the NC Administrative Office of the Courts authorized Orange County as a Drug Court Implementation site. Due to North Carolinas severe budget crisis, expansion funds have been limited for new programs. In spite of the lack of state funds, Orange County has moved ahead with a Pilot Drug Treatment Court sustained by the cooperative efforts of community partners mentioned above.
In July 2003, the Governors Crime Commission funded a position for a Drug Treatment Court Coordinator. This is a grant-funded position for the period of July 2003 to July 2004. The Drug Treatment Court Coordinator will serve under the Administrative Office of the Courts. Some of the responsibilities of this position will be to link and coordinate substance abuse services for Drug Court Defendants.
Due to the increased demands on the CRC Program, the CRC Treatment Team applied for a Federal Mental Health Courts Program Grant. This grant was awarded to The OPC Area Program on March 30, 2003. This award was the result of the collaboration between the OPC Area Program and the Administrative Office of the Court in Judicial District 15B in North Carolina. This grant is funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, Office of Justice Programs in the US Department of Justice. The funding period is for two years. This new position for the CRC will further enhance the alliance that has been developed between the mental health service system and the judicial department. The new position will be a clinical social worker dedicated to the CRC Program. Some of the responsibilities of this position will be to provide individual therapy, group therapy and case management services to the CRC clients.
Documents
North Carolina's Mental Health Court. Virginia Aldigé Hiday, Marlee E. Moore, Marie Lamoureaux, and Jeffrey de Magistris, Popular Government Vol. 70, No. 3, Spring/Summer2005, published by the School of Government, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The CRC has participated in two educational research studies. A Report for the Adult Mental Health Division, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services was completed in May, 2002 and titled The Seriously mentally Ill in North Carolinas Criminal Justice System. The Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, produced this report. This report studied North Carolinas services for the seriously mentally ill population that were involved in the criminal justice system. This report also analyzed methods for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and its Division of MH/DD/SAS- Adult Community Mental Health Section for improving the Adult Mental Health service system.
The second research study is currently ongoing. The Department of Sociology at the North Carolina State University is conducting an evaluation of the CRC. On January 14, 2002 this Community Resource Court Study proposal was submitted to the National Institute of Justice. Some of the research questions in this report are as follows:
Does the CRC reduce re-arrest among defendants?
Does the CRC increase access to services?
Do defendants improve their quality of life and community functioning through received treatment and services?
Pre courtroom observation was completed in 2002. Data analysis was completed from September 2003 October 2003. The final report is scheduled to be completed December 2003.
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Staff from the Consensus Project, GAINS EBP Center, and GAINS TAPA Center have not conducted an empirical evaluation of any of the profiles provided in the directory. Accordingly, the Consensus Project, GAINS EBP, and GAINS TAPA do not promote any of these programs as "models" or "best practices." Nor does the directory reflect an inventory of all relevant efforts underway across the country. Administrators of the programs included in the directory are largely responsible for maintaining information about their initiative current. Accordingly, staff cannot guarantee that the information in the directory is completely current.
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