Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Psychiatric and Mental Health Commons™
Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Keyword
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Psychiatric and Mental Health
Vulnerability And Just Desert: A Theory Of Sentencing And Mental Illness, E. Lea Johnston
Vulnerability And Just Desert: A Theory Of Sentencing And Mental Illness, E. Lea Johnston
UF Law Faculty Publications
This Article analyzes risks of serious harms posed to prisoners with major mental disorders and investigates their import for sentencing under a just deserts analysis. Drawing upon social science research, the Article first establishes that offenders with serious mental illnesses are more likely than non-ill offenders to suffer physical and sexual assaults, endure housing in solitary confinement, and experience psychological deterioration during their carceral terms. The Article then explores the significance of this differential impact for sentencing within a retributive framework. It first suggests a particular expressive understanding of punishment, capacious enough to encompass foreseeable, substantial risks of serious harm …
Theorizing Mental Health Courts, E. Lea Johnston
Theorizing Mental Health Courts, E. Lea Johnston
UF Law Faculty Publications
To date, no scholarly article has analyzed the theoretical basis of mental health courts, which currently exist in forty-three states. This Article examines the two utilitarian justifications proposed by mental health court advocates—therapeutic jurisprudence and therapeutic rehabilitation—and finds both insufficient. Therapeutic jurisprudence is inadequate to justify mental health courts because of its inability, by definition, to resolve significant normative conflict. In essence, mental health courts express values fundamentally at odds with those underlying the traditional criminal justice system. Furthermore, the sufficiency of rehabilitation, as this concept appears to be defined by mental health court advocates, depends on the validity of …