Prosecutorial Diversion of Individuals with Serious Mental Illness Involved in the Criminal Justice System

Using different approaches, three DSHS-contracted prosecutorial diversion programs aim to divert individuals with behavioral health conditions from the criminal justice system and competency services, into outpatient behavioral health services. This report describes participant characteristics at program entry for the 354 individuals who entered the three prosecutorial diversion programs from January 2017 to March 2019 and the behavioral health, criminal justice, and employment history for a subset of participants. Key findings include:

1. The Lourdes (Tri Cities) and LINC (King County) programs had higher percentages of participants with court orders for competency services in the five years prior to program entry, and more extensive criminal histories, compared to the Spokane County program;
2. A larger proportion of the LINC program participants were hospitalized for inpatient mental health services and were diagnosed with a psychotic disorder compared to the other programs;
3. The Lourdes program enrolled more participants with felony charges into their program compared to the LINC and Spokane County programs.