Examining Mental Health Court Completion: A Focal Concerns Perspective

Abstract

Sociologists have long-raised concern about disparate treatment in the justice system. Focal concerns have become the dominant perspective in explaining these disparities in legal processing decisions. Despite the growth of problem-solving courts, little research has examined how this perspective operates in nontraditional court settings. This article used a mixed-method approach to examine focal concerns in a mental health court (MHC). Observational findings indicate that gender and length of time in court influence the court's contextualization of noncompliance. While discussions of race were absent in observational data, competing-risk survival analysis finds that gender and race interact to predict MHC termination.

NOTES

Notes

¹ Following Hartley et al. (2007), we use the term “perspective” rather than “theory.” Focal concerns are useful in explaining court decision making; however, it does not provide explicit propositions, hypotheses, or clearly defined causal relations.

² We recognize that the MHC literature often refers to defendants as “participants” or “clients,” but we use the term defendant as a way to underscore our research interest in examining how focal concerns are employed in nontraditional court settings, while also recognizing them as a part of a larger justice process.