Healthcare Reform-ready Court Processes
Beginning in 2014, the Circuit Court of Cook County piloted court processes to identify how sentencing practices may be influenced when there is ready access to healthcare in the community, including substance use and mental health treatment. Through this pilot process, individuals received court supervision along with access to healthcare, which in this case is a made available via Medicaid expansion. Lessons learned through this process provides the basis for how healthcare coverage, linkage, and service access can be integrated across all criminal courtrooms as a means to inform and improve sentencing practices. The project is funded through
Adult Redeploy Illinois (ARI) grant funding from the
Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority (ICJIA). TASC is facilitating treatment capacity expansion by working in partnership with its wide network of service providers in the County. In addition, TASC has provided staffing to the court since it began operating in February 2014.