Your turn: Courts, community leading efforts to address public health, safety

Since the month of May was established as Mental Health Awareness Month in 1949, advocates across the country have led its observance and spread the word that few issues impact individuals, communities, and systems quite like mental health.

Millions of people across the country are affected by mental health concerns each year, and nowhere is this more evident than within our courts and justice system.

Commonly cited research estimates 70% of individuals involved in the criminal justice system have a mental health disorder, with 17% of adults (31% of women; 15% of men) living with a Serious Mental Illnesses (SMI).

Furthermore, 72% of incarcerated adults with SMI also have a co-occurring substance use disorder. This unfortunate reality requires courts to serve as a significant referral source to community mental health treatment systems, and often places jails in a tenuous position as de facto mental health institutions.

Fortunately, courts and justice partners are in a unique position to move beyond advocacy by bringing communities together to communicate, develop, and support responses to address public health and safety issues that often emanate from undertreated or untreated mental health disorders.

I am proud to bring to your attention the Illinois Courts’ Mental Health Action Plan, which was approved by our Illinois Supreme Court in November of 2023.

The Mental Health Action Plan is built on the premise that no one agency or institution can address the overrepresentation of justice-involved individuals with mental health needs, so we all must work together.

Although some of the Mental Health Action Plan recommendations are directly within the control and purview of the courts other recommendations are driven by systems whose resources or actions may have a direct impact on the justice system and justice-involved individuals.

Thus, the theme of the Mental Health Action Plan supports a multi-disciplinary and cross-systems approach to improving the court and community response to individuals with mental health needs.

This Mental Health Awareness Month I urge you to learn how your court and community are leading efforts to improve the intersection between mental health and justice.

To learn more about how the Illinois Courts are leading Change, visit illinoiscourts.gov/courts/supreme-court/committees-and-commissions/mental-health-leading-change.

Kathryn Zenoff serves as chair of the Illinois Supreme Court Special Advisory Committee for Justice and Mental Health Planning and has been chair of that committee since 2010.  She currently serves on the Illinois Appellate Court, Fourth District, having also previously served in the Second District.

This article originally appeared on Rockford Register Star: Your turn: Courts, community lead efforts to address mental health