Training Description
This course offers a comprehensive overview of the mental disability law issues in correctional settings (jails and prisons). Topics include the historical development of the constitutional right to correctional health and mental health care, and issues involving staffing, transfer, record keeping, suicide prevention, the significance of professional standards, the relationship between correctional mental health care and community systems of care, monitoring, informed consent, risk assessment, and privatization of services.
Author Biographies
Michael L. Perlin, JD is Professor of Law Emeritus at New York Law School (NYLS), founding director of NYLS's Online Mental Disability Law Program, and founding director of NYLS's International Mental Disability Law Reform Project in its Justice Action Center. Author of over 30 books and 300 articles on topics including mental illness and the criminal justice system, mental disability law, and sexual violent predator legislation, Professor Perlin has been the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the American Psychiatric Association and American Academy of Psychiatry and Law’s Manfred Guttmacher Award. Before becoming a professor, Perlin was a Deputy Public Defender in New Jersey as well as the director of the Division of Mental Health Advocacy for the New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate.
Heather Ellis Cucolo, JD is an adjunct professor and the current director of New York Law School’s Online Mental Disability Law Program. In addition to representing individuals facing civil commitment under both the New Jersey Mental Hygiene Law and the New Jersey’s Sexually Violent Predators Act, Professor Cucolo has published and lectured internationally on the representation and treatment of sexual offenders. She is recognized as one of the premiere experts in sexual violent predator law and has counseled attorneys, judges and clinicians on law and procedure in civil commitment proceedings and issues involving persons suffering from a mental disability or illness within the criminal justice system.
Learning Objectives
This training is designed to help you:
- Contextualize the historical development of the constitutional right to health care and mental health care within institutions
- Study the social and historical factors influencing the development of constitutional standards
- Learn about the possibilities of diversion from the criminal justice system
- Consider whether “Mental Health Courts” are a potential solution to the underlying problems
- Learn about the different ways defendants enter the criminal justice system
- Learn about the legal standards that govern litigation that seeks to challenge jail conditions
- Learn about the bases of the incompetency status and the insanity defense