"The state of mental illness in this country is beyond the trite notion of a crisis; it's at a point of comedic absurdity." This scathing assessment of the American mental health crisis, offered by California Governor Gavin Newsome, lays bare in the starkest of terms what anyone who works in criminal justice already knows: we are failing hundred of thousands of people with mental health issues. Governor Newsome's evaluation is particularly important to keep in mind this May, mental health awareness month.

America's three largest psychiatric treatment facilities are prisons—a result of the sharp decline in the number of psychiatric hospital beds since 1955—and over 16% of people in prisons are dealing with some form of serious mental illness. The criminal justice system has assumed the woe begotten position as a backstop to the public health system.

This has never been more apparent than now. As COVID-19 rages across prison populations, justice reform advocates are racing to find ways to safely reduce the number of people behind bars. A concentrated effort to offer mental health services instead of prison sentences could drastically reduce the population while preventing recidivism. The public health apparatus requires more resources for treatment and prevention, but so too does the criminal justice system. Many prison wardens and superintendents recognize the need but lack funding for the tools needed to address the prevalence of mental health issues in their midst. Others turn a blind eye.

The best solution is to keep these people out of prison in the first place and help them before they are incarcerated.

One particularly promising option is the expansion of mental health courts, a form of collaborative court based on the highly successful drug court model that provides services and treatments to participants while emphasizing collaborative problem solving between all parties. This departure from traditional criminal court is premised on the notion that underlying mental health issues are paramount to questions of factual guilt or innocence and that supporting the defendant leads to better long-term outcomes than the adversarial posture of prosecution and defense. An example of the possibilities for such a model, as seen in the recent PBS documentary, The Definition of Insanity, highlights the potential for a far more dignified approach than what most courtrooms offer.

Consider the story of Trevor Dolan, a participant in Miami-Dade County's Criminal Mental Health Project. Having tested positive for alcohol from an after-work drink the night before, Trevor, an affable young man in his twenties with a warm smile and insouciant demeanor, stood before a mental health court judge, at risk of spending the formative years of his life behind bars. Contrary to what some might expect from a courtroom setting, here the prosecutor and judge seemed hardly concerned with punishment, or whether this technical violation was grounds for dismissal from the program. Instead, the judge, the prosecutor, and Trevor's case manager talked to Trevor about what support, resources, and structure would better enable him to continue his treatment program.

And Trevor is not alone. In Miami's mental health court, roughly six hundred people each year—some of whom, like Trevor, are charged with felonies carrying decades of prison time—are diverted to mental health court. There, the prosecutor, defense attorney, case manager, and judge dispense with the adversarial courtroom structure to craft a treatment and rehabilitation program for people suffering from severe mental illness.

The display of compassion and clinical understanding in these courts has led to a rapid expansion. Yet, despite the fact that mental health courts have been growing in popularity around the country, few operate at a meaningful capacity when measured against the scale of the problem. For instance, as of November 2019, Brooklyn's mental health court graduated its 1,000th person since opening in 2002 while the Manhattan court processes far fewer cases than Brooklyn.

Data about the effectiveness of these models is inconclusive—given the small-scale of their implementation—but promising. Early studies suggest that the overwhelming cost—personal and financial—of the status quo is simply too high to not experiment with alternatives. Indeed, it is incumbent upon system actors and policy makers to advocate for funding, access, and research to support these thinly resourced operations. The addition of more support networks, peer advocates, therapists, doctors, and case managers is critical to scaling models and studying their effectiveness.

As the Miami model reflects, it will take a village, so to speak, to even begin to solve the American mental health crisis, especially at a time of unprecedented criminal justice change. No one powerful prosecutor, heroic defense attorney, or omnipotent judge will fix this alone. Bringing to heel the "comedic absurdity" of our failures to serve people suffering from mental health challenges will require all hands on deck. Mental health courts are a place to start. It is time that we got started.

Michael Kahn is director of operations and policy at the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.