9. CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND FORENSIC ISSUES

9.1 NAMI believes that state and local mental health authorities must work closely in conjunction with state and local correctional and law enforcement agencies to develop strategies and programs for compassionate intervention by law enforcement, jail diversion, treatment of individuals with brain disorders who are incarcerated, and discharge planning and community reintegration services for individuals with brain disorders released from correctional facilities.

9.2 NAMI believes that education about brain disorders at all levels of judicial and legal systems is crucial to the appropriate disposition of cases involving offenders with brain disorders. Judges, lawyers, police officers, correctional officers, parole and probation officers, law enforcement personnel, court officers, and emergency medical transport and service personnel should be required to complete at least 20 hours of training about these disorders. Consumers and family members should be a part of this educational process.

9.3 Right to Treatment (Regardless of Criminal Status)

9.3.1) Humane and effective treatment for brain disorders while in correctional settings is the constitutional right of inmates with severe mental illnesses. NAMI strongly urges the enactment of state statutes expanding treatment programs within prison and jail settings, including first line access to new generation medications whenever clinically indicated.

(9.3.2) NAMI endorses state laws and policies establishing systems of community treatment for offenders with brain disorders who are released on parole and/or are in the community on probation or parole status.

9.4 Jail Diversion

(9.4.1) NAMI believes that persons who have committed offenses due to states of mind or behavior caused by a brain disorder do not belong in penal or correctional institutions. Such persons require treatment, not punishment. A prison or jail is never an optimal therapeutic setting.

(9.4.2) NAMI supports a variety of approaches to diverting individuals from unnecessary incarceration into appropriate treatment, including pre-booking
(police-based) diversion, post-booking (court-based) diversion, alternative sentencing programs, and post-adjudication diversion (conditional release).

9.5 NAMI believes that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, dangerous or violent acts committed by persons with brain disorders are the result of neglect or inappropriate or inadequate treatment of their illness. State and local mental health authorities must develop policies and programs to provide care and appropriate treatment for persons who suffer from brain disorders that produce behaviors assessed and labeled by society as "criminal" or "violent." Where a mental illness and substance abuse co-occur they should be treated with integrated treatment. (Revised January 29, 2001)

9.6 NAMI opposes the death penalty for persons with brain disorders.

9 7 Insanity Defense NAMI supports the retention of the "insanity defense" and favors the two-prong ("ALI")2 test that includes the volitional as well as the cognitive standard.

9.7.1 "Guilty but Mentally III"

NAMI opposes "guilty but mentally ill" statutes as presently applied because they are used to punish rather than to treat persons with brain disorders who have committed crimes as a consequence of their brain disorders.

9.7.2 "Guilty except for insanity" and other alternative terminology for the insanity defense

NAMI supports systems that provide comprehensive, long-term care and supervision to individuals who are found "not guilty by reason of insanity", "guilty except for insanity", and any other similar terminology used in state statutes 3.

2 The "ALI test"refers to the rule for insanity adopted in Section 4.01(1) of the American Law Institute" Model Penal Code. The Code states that "a person is not responsible for criminal conduct' if at the time of such conduct as a result of mental disease or defect he lacks substantial capacity either to appreciate the criminality (or alternatively, wrongfulness) of his conduct (cognitive standard) or to conform his conduct to the requirements of law (volitional standard). "

3 States currently apply three different terms to verdicts incorporating a formal finding or acknowledgementof mental illness.
"Not guilty by reason of insanity" is the traditional term used when a person is determined as not criminally responsible due to mental illness. Individuals found "not guilty by reason of insanity" are typically sentenced to secure psychiatric treatment facilities instead of prison.