This is the final installment in a series of articles about the Travis County Forensic Mental Health Project.
In its Recommendation #3, The Travis County Forensic Mental Health Project compiled a list of what it termed “quick wins”—recommendations that can be implemented relatively quickly with low costs, one-time costs, or low ongoing costs.1
Quick Wins – Low/No Cost
The first of these quick wins is to create training on Article 16.22 of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
“The 16.22 Mental Health Evaluation can be requested by the magistrate judge prior to magistration and provides the judge with an overview of an individual’s mental health status, needs, and potential community programs and services they could enroll in if allowed to bond out of jail,” the document says.
Though the Texas Judicial Commission on Mental Health recently released the Texas CCP Art. 16.22 Guide – January 2023,2 “there is no official integrated training on how or when to request a 16.22, how to complete it, how recommendations in it could impact the outcome of release for an individual, and how a judge or attorney can read and/or interpret a 16.22 aimed at both legal and clinical professionals.”