A hospital-based mental health court.

Deinstitutionalized chronically mentally ill patients face the prospect of homelessness, insufficient community services, and the possibility of criminalization. Further, many communities do not have a mechanism for recognizing the special problems many of the chronically mentally ill have when they enter the legal system. The following is a description of a hospital-based mental health court, a nontraditional, highly effective program intended to identify chronically mentally ill persons in the community, as well as recognize and correct inadequacy in services available to the deinstitutionalized.