{"id":643359,"date":"2026-05-02T16:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/643359\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T16:33:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T16:33:08","slug":"investigation-takes-in-depth-look-at-illinois-mental-health-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/643359\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation takes in-depth look at Illinois’ mental health courts"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"WLS<\/p>\n

Saturday, May 2, 2026 3:18PM<\/p>\n

\"Investigation<\/p>\n

CHICAGO (WLS) — ABC7’s “Weekend Watch” shines a spotlight on government activity.<\/p>\n

An Illinois Answers Project investigation is taking an in-depth look at the state’s network of mental health courts.<\/p>\n

ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\n

These courts aim to divert people suffering from a serious mental illness and are facing criminal charges away from prison. Instead, they are sent to treatment.<\/p>\n

According to their investigation, more than 6,000 people have gone through mental health courts since they began operating in Illinois in the early 2000s.<\/p>\n

However, they say only about half have graduated, and millions of others have been excluded.<\/p>\n

Grace Hauck from the Illinois Answers Project joined ABC7 to discuss on Saturday morning. Click here<\/a> for more.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 WLS-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturday, May 2, 2026 3:18PM CHICAGO (WLS) — ABC7’s “Weekend Watch” shines a spotlight on government activity. An…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394,153479],"class_list":["post-643359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-no-ta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}