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Deflection and Diversion
Behavioral Health Service Gaps Contribute to Justice Involvement
Forensic and Justice Services at DBHR sits within a larger system of social services in Illinois, which is adapting to meet Illinoisans’ behavioral health needs. System stakeholders are actively working toward addressing gaps in services such as:
- Lack of timely access to behavioral health services
- Poor crisis response
- Inadequate diversion programs that result in significant mental illness in county jails
- Deficit of community resources and sites to discharge the individuals in IDHS care
The Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) provides a useful framework for understanding this dynamic. It illustrates how individuals move through the justice system and identifies key intercept points where diversion to treatment can occur. This includes community services (Intercept 0), through law enforcement, courts, incarceration, and reentry into the community (Intercept 4). When effective services are not available at early intercepts, (e.g., accessible outpatient care, crisis stabilization, or diversion programs) individuals are more likely to progress deeper into the justice system.
Image source: https://www.samhsa.gov/communities/criminal-juvenile-justice/sequential-intercept-model
Forensics and Justice Services primarily operate in the later intercepts—particularly the courts, jails, and community reentry—often after multiple missed opportunities for diversion. The result is a system where the lack of preventative off-ramps contributes to increased justice involvement, longer inpatient stays, and challenges due to limited community resources, including waitlists for services.
While forensic services play an essential role, the drivers of justice involvement begin upstream. Strengthening early intervention, diversion pathways, and community capacity is essential to reducing unnecessary justice system involvement and improving outcomes across the full continuum of care.
Crisis Continuum
The Illinois Crisis Care System is a statewide behavioral health crisis continuum designed to provide rapid, community-based responses to individuals experiencing mental health or substance use crises. The system is built around three core components:
988 Crisis Call Centers
Mobile Crisis Response (MCR) teams
Crisis Stabilization Services
The goal of the Crisis Care System is to treat behavioral health crises as health care emergencies rather than criminal justice events. Individuals, family members, law enforcement officers, courts, or providers can access crisis services through 988, which connects callers to trained behavioral health professionals who can assess needs, provide immediate support, dispatch a mobile crisis team, and link individuals to appropriate treatment and community resources.
For individuals with mental illness and involved with the justice system, the crisis care system serves as an important diversion and stabilization resource. Mobile Crisis Response teams can respond directly in the community to assess risk, de-escalate crises, develop safety plans, and connect individuals to services. This response helps to
- Divert people from arrest when behavioral health symptoms are driving the crisis
- Reduce unnecessary emergency department visits and jail admissions
- Connect individuals to outpatient treatment, medication management, housing, and recovery supports
- Provide early intervention before symptoms escalate into criminal behavior or violations of court conditions
- Support continuity of care for individuals transitioning from jails, hospitals, or forensic programs back into the community
- By expanding access to timely crisis intervention and treatment, the Illinois Crisis Care System helps improve public safety, promotes recovery, and reduces reliance on the justice system as a response to behavioral health needs.
Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT)
Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), under Illinois statute 405 ILCS 5/3-801.5, provides a legal framework to support treatment among individuals with a history of non-adherence and repeated, frequent hospitalization or incarceration. An AOT is a civil—not criminal—court order that legally requires a person to participate in a community-based treatment plan while simultaneously obligating the behavioral health system to actively provide and monitor that care. It is a shared agreement between providers, individuals, and families, typically overseen by a judge within a Mental Health Court.
In counties and municipalities where AOT orders are supported by outpatient services, the services may include care planning, mental health and substance use programming, peer support, family support, and access to resources for food, housing, and basic health services in exchange for the patient with SMI adhering to their treatment plan. While there are statutory options for involuntary AOTs, most Illinois AOT orders are voluntary in nature. Most orders include a provision that, should a person be out of compliance with their medication regimen and care, they may be brought (in collaboration with crisis response teams or law enforcement) to a hospital for a behavioral health evaluation—and from there, if warranted, to either a voluntary or involuntary hospitalization.
Diversion Programs
In January 2026, Public Act 104-0318 updated the fitness statute to permit diversion options for unfit misdemeanants.
“The court shall require an eligibility screening and an assessment of the defendant to determine whether the defendant may be able to receive mental health services under the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Code which shall reasonably assure his or her safety and that of the public and his or her continued participation in treatment. If, following this screening, the State and the defendant agree to the diversion and the court determines that the defendant is appropriate for diversion, the criminal charges may be dismissed. If the parties do not agree or the court does not approve, the court shall order a fitness examination under Section 104-13 of this Code and the matter shall be governed by any other relevant provisions of Article 104.” 725 ILCS 5/104A-3
Criminal justice diversion programs can be designed to provide an alternative to traditional criminal prosecution for certain individuals, usually non-violent offenders, with the goal of addressing underlying issues that may contribute to criminal behavior. Diversion program options vary by county.
In Illinois, diversion options such as Mental Health Courts and deferred prosecution programs exist in some counties and offer structured, treatment-focused alternatives through coordinated partnerships between the legal system and service providers. These programs connect individuals to treatment, services, and community-based support with potential for charges to be reduced or dismissed upon successful completion. Ideally, additional diversion programs can be developed across the state over time.
Diversion should be considered whenever legally and clinically appropriate. The forensic mental health system plays a critical role, but it is best reserved as a path of last resort used only when diversion is not viable.
Dismiss and Transfer to Civil
Dismiss and transfer is the practice by which criminal charges are dismissed prior to a competency determination or in lieu of competency restoration and held in abeyance while an application for civil commitment is filed, typically in the probate (civil) court. Local leaders may consider using dismiss and transfer procedures for people with SMI who have committed low level, misdemeanor crimes to reduce the competency restoration backlog. Once a civil commitment order has been issued, the individual is released to an outpatient commitment program for community treatment and monitoring usually after spending a short time in the hospital for stabilization.