Criminal offenders: mental health.

(1) Existing law generally requires, if a person is convicted of a felony and is eligible for probation, before judgment is pronounced, the court to immediately refer the matter to a probation officer to investigate and report to the court upon the circumstances surrounding the crime and the prior history and record of the person. Existing law also authorizes, when a defendant has been granted probation, the court to impose conditions of probation, including, among others, that the probationer go to work and earn money for the support of his or her dependents or to pay any fine imposed or reparation condition. This bill would authorize a defendant to provide documentation to the court that he or she is currently, or was at any prior time, eligible for public mental health services due to a serious mental illness or eligible for Social Security Disability Insurance due to a diagnosed mental illness. The bill would prohibit a finding that the defendant has a mental disorder, any progress report concerning his or her treatment, or any other record related to a mental disorder from being used in any other civil or administrative proceeding without the defendant's consent. The bill would also require the court to consider the defendant's mental health history when determining sentencing and whether referral to the county behavioral health system for treatment in the community, including residential treatment, is appropriate in lieu of incarceration. (2) Existing law, the California Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act of 2009, authorizes each county to establish a Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund, and authorizes the state to annually allocate moneys into a State Community Corrections Performance Incentives Fund to be used for specified purposes relating to improving local probation supervision practices and capacities, as specified. This bill would establish the State Community Mental Health Performance Incentives Fund that, upon an appropriation of funds by the Legislature, would be available for transfer to counties as mental health incarceration rate reduction incentive payments to be deposited in a Community Mental Health Performance Incentives Fund that each county would be authorized to establish. The bill would require that the incentive payments be made available to the board of supervisors of a county for purposes of a community mental health program. The bill would require the board of supervisors to use the incentive payments to provide adult offenders subject to local supervision and those at risk of arrest or incarceration with treatment services through community-based services that address mental health needs and risk factors for incarceration. The bill would, until January 1, 2025, require the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to annually report to the Department of Finance the number of inmates per county sentenced in the calendar year to imprisonment in the state prison that were placed in the Mental Health Services Delivery System upon entry into the state prison. The bill would, until January 1, 2025, require the Department of Finance, in consultation with the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, and the California State Association of Counties, to determine the amount of the mental health incarceration rate reduction incentive payments for a county, equal to the estimated number of adults with mental illness successfully prevented from being sent to prison multiplied by 50% of the average cost to incarcerate an inmate with mental illness.