The Future of Jail-Based Competency Treatment: Commentary from 30,000 Feet

Abstract

In their recent article, “Jail-Based Competency Treatment Comes of Age,” Jennings et al. [1] reviewed the historical development of the model and presented the first largescale empirical support for its effectiveness, which covered eight years of outcomes across four different program sites for nearly 2,000 Incompetent to Stand Trial (IST) defendants. As expressed in the title of the article, they asserted that the jail-based competency treatment (JBCT) model is, for better or worse, here to stay. For mental health advocates and other critics of the concept of jail-based restoration, the establishment of jail-based competency treatment may be an unwelcome development. This commentary looks at the emergence of the JBCT from a broader “30,000 foot” perspective that puts JBCT in the context of how JBCT can best be applied within the current realities of the forensic mental health crisis in America.