Butte County Court Will Offer Services for Nonviolent Offenders with Mental Illnesses
Butte County has received a $2.8 million Department of Corrections research grant to offer integrated services to nonviolent misdemeanor offenders with mental illnesses, the Media NewsGroup/Chico Enterprise reports. The grant will fund a three-year Forensic Research Team, or FOREST, project that will create new links between the county's "successful" drug court, the district attorney and behavioral health and probation offices to "address problems specific to the mentally ill," according to FOREST Court Judge Stephen Benson. The collaboration will include a "jail/intake team for early contact and screening, a court team to support the FOREST court" and a treatment team. To qualify for the program, mentally ill offenders must enter a guilty plea, and officials then identify "appropriate services ... as part of probation." Those who violate their probation would be sent to jail (Andersen, Media NewsGroup/Chico Enterprise, 4/18).
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