At a time when many communities are trying to keep criminal offenders with mental illnesses out of prisons and jails, the state's first mental health court has shown promising results.

About 84 percent of people served by the Allegheny County Mental Health Court have stayed out of trouble with the law while under the court's supervision, according to the county Department of Human Services.

From the start of the court in mid-2001 through last June, 27 of 311 people under the court's jurisdiction were arrested on new charges, said Amy Kroll, the department's director of forensic services. Twenty-two others were taken into custody for probation or parole violations.

Officials believe those results are encouraging as many communities struggle with rising inmate populations. Many inmates cycle in and out of incarceration at significant cost to taxpayers.

Failing to address the needs of mentally ill offenders "is a drain on the law enforcement community and the judicial and prison systems," said state Sen. Robert Thompson, R-Chester. He noted that nearly one in five inmates in Pennsylvania prisons and jails are believed to have a mental illness, about three times the rate of the general population.

"If we can get these individuals in treatment and stabilized, we can begin to stabilize our costs," said Thompson, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Thompson co-authored a resolution approved by lawmakers last year to provide a report to the Legislature and the governor on the Allegheny County Mental Health Court and two initiatives for serving mentally ill criminal offenders in Chester County and Philadelphia.

That report will be based on a series of studies, coordinated by state officials and the Council of State Governments, of the fiscal impact of those programs and the advisability of replicating them in other communities. Preliminary results of the studies are expected later this year.

Reacting to requests from officials in many states, the Council developed the Criminal Justice/ Mental Health Consensus Project to improve the criminal justice system's response to people with mental illness. Thompson co-chaired the steering committee for the project, which issued recommendations in a 2002 report.

County officials began developing the programs years ago "because we realized jails and prisons are not good places for people in terms of their health or prospects for rehabilitation," said Patricia Valentine, deputy director of the Office of Behavioral Health.

Since the 1980s, the county has had a diversion program that works with district justices, with the goal of having minor charges dismissed after 90 days if offenders agree to mental health treatment, Kroll said. The program served 683 people in 2003.

The same year, she said, 870 people with mental illnesses were served by another program that works with people who typically face more serious charges or who have criminal records. It petitions judges to consider alternatives to incarceration, such as house arrest.

The mental health court, a collaboration involving the courts, the public defender's and district attorney's offices, and the county Department of Human Services, has an annual budget of about $700,000 that includes some in-kind services, Kroll said. Funding has come from foundations and public sources.

The court generally serves people with mental illnesses who do not have serious criminal histories and who are not facing a probation violation or criminal charges that include homicide, sex crimes, drug trafficking, certain thefts and assaults, or driving under the influence of alcohol.

If officials determine the case is appropriate for the court, a mental health service plan is prepared and submitted to the judge. The judge must accept the plan and participants must agree to abide by its terms before they are released from jail.

Staffers provide help with obtaining housing and mental health treatment and reinstating public assistance benefits. Participants continue to be supervised by the court throughout their probation, with "reinforcement hearings" held at least every 90 days to encourage compliance with the plan.

Mental health courts are modeled after drug courts, which originated in Florida in the 1980s, said Christy Visher, a principal research associate at the Urban Institute in Washington.

The courts are based on the premise that judges can be more persuasive in directing a defendant's rehabilitation than probation officers or caseworkers, she said.

Evidence suggests the courts are effective, at least while participants are under court supervision, she said.

In general, the courts tend to cost more to operate than other courts, Visher said. Hearings can be longer and participants may make more court appearances.

But research indicates the courts can cut costs in other ways, primarily through the savings that result from reduced crime, she said.

Visher said Allegheny County would need to follow participants after court supervision ends to better assess the local mental health court's success. But even short-term success is "better than doing nothing at all," she said.

Michelle Leigh Bailey-Baird, the court's public defender, expressed strong support for the court despite her concerns that rising case loads have made supervising participants more difficult.

The court experienced "growing pains" during its first 2¹*₂ years, according to a report prepared by a consultant for a local foundation and posted on the Department of Human Services' Web site.

The report noted that fewer people were accepted into the court than planned and average time spent in jail before release was longer than anticipated. Kroll said officials are working to address those issues.

Still, the results are encouraging, the report found, calling the number of participants who had subsequent problems with the law "remarkably low."