Miner P. Marchbanks
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- School: Texas A&M University
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Biography
Texas A&M University College Station - Government
Research Scientist at Texas A&M University
Higher Education
Miner "Trey"
Marchbanks
College Station, Texas
Miner Marchbanks III, Ph.D. is a Research Scientist at the PPRI at Texas A&M University. Dr. Marchbanks joined PPRI in 2007 after serving on the graduate faculty of the Texas Tech University Political Science Department. Dr. Marchbanks’ expertise is in the use of advanced statistical methodologies to answer public policy questions. In addition, he is skilled in game theoretic modeling and experimental designs. He has been a principal investigator or co-principal investigator on projects totaling $7.3 million. He served as a key researcher for the Evaluation of Developmental Education Demonstration Projects funded by Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) as well as the Comprehensive Review of P-16 College Readiness and Success Initiatives also funded by THECB. He is currently the principal investigator for a three year project examining the causes and effects of school discipline for secondary school students funded by the National Institute of Justice, Department of Justice. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Criminal Justice, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Review of Policy Research, the Journal of Applied Research on Children, Journal of Developmental Education, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice and is forthcoming in Sociological Spectrum and Urban Education. His work is also featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe and Austin American-Statesman and on NPR and CNN; further the work has been cited by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder referred to the work as a “landmark” report.
Experience
Texas A&M University
Research Scientist
I specialize in utilizing advanced econometric techniques to answer public policy questions. Over the past five years, I have worked with a variety of sponsors, including the National Institute of Justice, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Education Agency, Texas Indigent Defense Commission, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, United Way, Council of State Governments and the state of Qatar.
In addition to serving as a key researcher on scores of projects, I have secured over $6.2 million in research funds as a Principal Investigator/Co-PI. My work has been cited by the Attorney General and Secretary of Education, featured in the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe and on NPR and CNN. I have also presented my work at the United Nations.Texas A&M University
Lecturer-Bush School of Government and Public Service
Teach courses in Policy Analysis, Program Evaluation and Quantitative Methods to MPSA students
Texas Tech University
Assistant Professor
I taught graduate courses in Policy Analysis, Program Evaluation and Public Policy Theory in addition to undergraduate Public Policy and Introduction to American Government.
Education
Texas A&M University
Ph.D.
Political Science
Texas A&M University
B.S.
Political Sciene
Texas A&M University
Research Scientist
I specialize in utilizing advanced econometric techniques to answer public policy questions. Over the past five years, I have worked with a variety of sponsors, including the National Institute of Justice, Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Education Agency, Texas Indigent Defense Commission, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, United Way, Council of State Governments and the state of Qatar. In addition to serving as a key researcher on scores of projects, I have secured over $6.2 million in research funds as a Principal Investigator/Co-PI. My work has been cited by the Attorney General and Secretary of Education, featured in the New York Times, Washington Post and Boston Globe and on NPR and CNN. I have also presented my work at the United Nations.Texas A&M University
Lecturer-Bush School of Government and Public Service
Teach courses in Policy Analysis, Program Evaluation and Quantitative Methods to MPSA studentsWashington University in St. Louis
Certificate
Empirical Implications of Theoretical Models
Publications
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
A Lingering Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited.
Review of Policy Research
Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization's pursuit of its primary mission. An earlier version of this article analyzed the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. This is an update of the original article that adds two years of data to the original study. Using an educational production function, this article assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Controlling for various known components of academic performance, athletic budgets have a significant negative relationship with academic performance. Schools that devote a large amount of resources to athletic budgets have lower levels of academic achievement. A focus on athletics seems to institutionalize goals that conflict with the schools’ academic missions.
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
A Lingering Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited.
Review of Policy Research
Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization's pursuit of its primary mission. An earlier version of this article analyzed the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. This is an update of the original article that adds two years of data to the original study. Using an educational production function, this article assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Controlling for various known components of academic performance, athletic budgets have a significant negative relationship with academic performance. Schools that devote a large amount of resources to athletic budgets have lower levels of academic achievement. A focus on athletics seems to institutionalize goals that conflict with the schools’ academic missions.
Comparing Campus Discipline Rates: A Multivariate Approach for Identifying Schools with Significantly Different than Expected Exclusionary Discipline Rates
Journal of Applied Research on Children
Campus behavior management is important for ensuring classroom order and promoting positive academic outcomes. Previous studies have shown the importance of individual student and campus personnel characteristics and campus context for explaining campus discipline rates (e.g., rates of suspension and expulsion). Assessing campus discipline rates, while controlling for these individual and campus characteristics, is important for the monitoring, evaluation, and intervention role of policymakers as well as state and federal level education agencies. Systems or metrics exist that measure other student outcomes (i.e., academic performance) with controls for individual and campus characteristics, but none exist that monitor these differences for discipline rates across campuses. In this paper, we use a multivariate model to analyze a longitudinal, statewide dataset for all secondary students in Texas from 2000 to 2008 in order to examine how campus discipline rates differ across schools with statistically similar students, teachers, and campus characteristics. The findings are important for understanding that some schools with similar characteristics have significantly different exclusionary discipline rates, and they are important for informing policy and agency level decision-making. The methodology described can easily be used by monitoring agencies as well as local school districts.
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
A Lingering Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited.
Review of Policy Research
Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization's pursuit of its primary mission. An earlier version of this article analyzed the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. This is an update of the original article that adds two years of data to the original study. Using an educational production function, this article assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Controlling for various known components of academic performance, athletic budgets have a significant negative relationship with academic performance. Schools that devote a large amount of resources to athletic budgets have lower levels of academic achievement. A focus on athletics seems to institutionalize goals that conflict with the schools’ academic missions.
Comparing Campus Discipline Rates: A Multivariate Approach for Identifying Schools with Significantly Different than Expected Exclusionary Discipline Rates
Journal of Applied Research on Children
Campus behavior management is important for ensuring classroom order and promoting positive academic outcomes. Previous studies have shown the importance of individual student and campus personnel characteristics and campus context for explaining campus discipline rates (e.g., rates of suspension and expulsion). Assessing campus discipline rates, while controlling for these individual and campus characteristics, is important for the monitoring, evaluation, and intervention role of policymakers as well as state and federal level education agencies. Systems or metrics exist that measure other student outcomes (i.e., academic performance) with controls for individual and campus characteristics, but none exist that monitor these differences for discipline rates across campuses. In this paper, we use a multivariate model to analyze a longitudinal, statewide dataset for all secondary students in Texas from 2000 to 2008 in order to examine how campus discipline rates differ across schools with statistically similar students, teachers, and campus characteristics. The findings are important for understanding that some schools with similar characteristics have significantly different exclusionary discipline rates, and they are important for informing policy and agency level decision-making. The methodology described can easily be used by monitoring agencies as well as local school districts.
Closer to Home: An Analysis of the State and Local Impact of the Texas Juvenile Justice Reforms
Council of State Governments Justice Center
Draws on an unprecedented dataset of 1.3 million individual case records spanning eight years, shows youth incarcerated in state-run facilities are 21 percent more likely to be rearrested than those who remain under supervision closer to home. When they do reoffend, youth released from state-secure facilities are three times more likely to commit a felony than youth under community supervision.
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
A Lingering Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited.
Review of Policy Research
Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization's pursuit of its primary mission. An earlier version of this article analyzed the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. This is an update of the original article that adds two years of data to the original study. Using an educational production function, this article assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Controlling for various known components of academic performance, athletic budgets have a significant negative relationship with academic performance. Schools that devote a large amount of resources to athletic budgets have lower levels of academic achievement. A focus on athletics seems to institutionalize goals that conflict with the schools’ academic missions.
Comparing Campus Discipline Rates: A Multivariate Approach for Identifying Schools with Significantly Different than Expected Exclusionary Discipline Rates
Journal of Applied Research on Children
Campus behavior management is important for ensuring classroom order and promoting positive academic outcomes. Previous studies have shown the importance of individual student and campus personnel characteristics and campus context for explaining campus discipline rates (e.g., rates of suspension and expulsion). Assessing campus discipline rates, while controlling for these individual and campus characteristics, is important for the monitoring, evaluation, and intervention role of policymakers as well as state and federal level education agencies. Systems or metrics exist that measure other student outcomes (i.e., academic performance) with controls for individual and campus characteristics, but none exist that monitor these differences for discipline rates across campuses. In this paper, we use a multivariate model to analyze a longitudinal, statewide dataset for all secondary students in Texas from 2000 to 2008 in order to examine how campus discipline rates differ across schools with statistically similar students, teachers, and campus characteristics. The findings are important for understanding that some schools with similar characteristics have significantly different exclusionary discipline rates, and they are important for informing policy and agency level decision-making. The methodology described can easily be used by monitoring agencies as well as local school districts.
Closer to Home: An Analysis of the State and Local Impact of the Texas Juvenile Justice Reforms
Council of State Governments Justice Center
Draws on an unprecedented dataset of 1.3 million individual case records spanning eight years, shows youth incarcerated in state-run facilities are 21 percent more likely to be rearrested than those who remain under supervision closer to home. When they do reoffend, youth released from state-secure facilities are three times more likely to commit a felony than youth under community supervision.
Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement
Council of State Governments Justice Center
A recent and unprecedented study of nearly one million Texas public school students, followed for over six years, reveals nearly 60 percent were either suspended or expelled. This and additional findings are presented in a special report prepared by the Public Policy Research Institute of Texas A&M University in partnership with the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center. Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement features these and other key findings: *Of the nearly 1 million public secondary school students studied, about 15 percent were suspended or expelled 11 times or more; nearly half of these students with 11 or more disciplinary actions were involved in the juvenile justice system. *African-American students and those with particular disabilities were disproportionately disciplined for discretionary actions. *Repeated suspensions and expulsions predicted poor academic outcomes. Only 40 percent of students disciplined 11 times or more graduated from high school during the study period, and 31 percent of students disciplined one or more times repeated their grade at least once. *Schools that had similar characteristics, including the racial composition and economic status of the student body, varied greatly in how frequently they suspended or expelled students. This study relied on more than 6 million school and juvenile justice records (for every student who was in seventh grade in a Texas public school in academic years 2000, 2001 and 2002), even tracking those students who moved from one school to another within the state.
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
A Lingering Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited.
Review of Policy Research
Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization's pursuit of its primary mission. An earlier version of this article analyzed the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. This is an update of the original article that adds two years of data to the original study. Using an educational production function, this article assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Controlling for various known components of academic performance, athletic budgets have a significant negative relationship with academic performance. Schools that devote a large amount of resources to athletic budgets have lower levels of academic achievement. A focus on athletics seems to institutionalize goals that conflict with the schools’ academic missions.
Comparing Campus Discipline Rates: A Multivariate Approach for Identifying Schools with Significantly Different than Expected Exclusionary Discipline Rates
Journal of Applied Research on Children
Campus behavior management is important for ensuring classroom order and promoting positive academic outcomes. Previous studies have shown the importance of individual student and campus personnel characteristics and campus context for explaining campus discipline rates (e.g., rates of suspension and expulsion). Assessing campus discipline rates, while controlling for these individual and campus characteristics, is important for the monitoring, evaluation, and intervention role of policymakers as well as state and federal level education agencies. Systems or metrics exist that measure other student outcomes (i.e., academic performance) with controls for individual and campus characteristics, but none exist that monitor these differences for discipline rates across campuses. In this paper, we use a multivariate model to analyze a longitudinal, statewide dataset for all secondary students in Texas from 2000 to 2008 in order to examine how campus discipline rates differ across schools with statistically similar students, teachers, and campus characteristics. The findings are important for understanding that some schools with similar characteristics have significantly different exclusionary discipline rates, and they are important for informing policy and agency level decision-making. The methodology described can easily be used by monitoring agencies as well as local school districts.
Closer to Home: An Analysis of the State and Local Impact of the Texas Juvenile Justice Reforms
Council of State Governments Justice Center
Draws on an unprecedented dataset of 1.3 million individual case records spanning eight years, shows youth incarcerated in state-run facilities are 21 percent more likely to be rearrested than those who remain under supervision closer to home. When they do reoffend, youth released from state-secure facilities are three times more likely to commit a felony than youth under community supervision.
Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement
Council of State Governments Justice Center
A recent and unprecedented study of nearly one million Texas public school students, followed for over six years, reveals nearly 60 percent were either suspended or expelled. This and additional findings are presented in a special report prepared by the Public Policy Research Institute of Texas A&M University in partnership with the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center. Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement features these and other key findings: *Of the nearly 1 million public secondary school students studied, about 15 percent were suspended or expelled 11 times or more; nearly half of these students with 11 or more disciplinary actions were involved in the juvenile justice system. *African-American students and those with particular disabilities were disproportionately disciplined for discretionary actions. *Repeated suspensions and expulsions predicted poor academic outcomes. Only 40 percent of students disciplined 11 times or more graduated from high school during the study period, and 31 percent of students disciplined one or more times repeated their grade at least once. *Schools that had similar characteristics, including the racial composition and economic status of the student body, varied greatly in how frequently they suspended or expelled students. This study relied on more than 6 million school and juvenile justice records (for every student who was in seventh grade in a Texas public school in academic years 2000, 2001 and 2002), even tracking those students who moved from one school to another within the state.
The economic effects of exclusionary discipline on grade retention and high school dropout. (in Closing the School Discipline Gap: Research for Policymakers)
Teachers College Press
Edited Volume - forthcoming
What Determines How Long Political Appointees Serve?
Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory
The president's role as chief executive depends on the quality and tenure of political appointees who assist with the constitutional charge to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This study explores the determinants of the duration of political appointee service. Using an agency theory framework, we propose that appointee tenure depends on financial incentives, executive-legislative conflict, solidary, and material benefits offered by the president, as well as implicit incentives that differ across presidential administrations. Using Office of Personnel Management records from January 1982 through August 2003, we employ multivariate survival analysis to confirm most aspects of the theory. The results imply that the most important determinants of political appointee tenure are financial and the difficulty of public administrative service. However, the president can affect exit propensities at the margins by manipulating rewards and implicit incentives that promote loyalty to public service and the administration.
A Lingering Question of Priorities: Athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited.
Review of Policy Research
Many organization theories suggest that divergent goals can hamper an organization's pursuit of its primary mission. An earlier version of this article analyzed the effect of the pursuit of divergent goals on American public schools. This is an update of the original article that adds two years of data to the original study. Using an educational production function, this article assesses the relationships between athletic budgets and various aggregate measures of academic performance. Controlling for various known components of academic performance, athletic budgets have a significant negative relationship with academic performance. Schools that devote a large amount of resources to athletic budgets have lower levels of academic achievement. A focus on athletics seems to institutionalize goals that conflict with the schools’ academic missions.
Comparing Campus Discipline Rates: A Multivariate Approach for Identifying Schools with Significantly Different than Expected Exclusionary Discipline Rates
Journal of Applied Research on Children
Campus behavior management is important for ensuring classroom order and promoting positive academic outcomes. Previous studies have shown the importance of individual student and campus personnel characteristics and campus context for explaining campus discipline rates (e.g., rates of suspension and expulsion). Assessing campus discipline rates, while controlling for these individual and campus characteristics, is important for the monitoring, evaluation, and intervention role of policymakers as well as state and federal level education agencies. Systems or metrics exist that measure other student outcomes (i.e., academic performance) with controls for individual and campus characteristics, but none exist that monitor these differences for discipline rates across campuses. In this paper, we use a multivariate model to analyze a longitudinal, statewide dataset for all secondary students in Texas from 2000 to 2008 in order to examine how campus discipline rates differ across schools with statistically similar students, teachers, and campus characteristics. The findings are important for understanding that some schools with similar characteristics have significantly different exclusionary discipline rates, and they are important for informing policy and agency level decision-making. The methodology described can easily be used by monitoring agencies as well as local school districts.
Closer to Home: An Analysis of the State and Local Impact of the Texas Juvenile Justice Reforms
Council of State Governments Justice Center
Draws on an unprecedented dataset of 1.3 million individual case records spanning eight years, shows youth incarcerated in state-run facilities are 21 percent more likely to be rearrested than those who remain under supervision closer to home. When they do reoffend, youth released from state-secure facilities are three times more likely to commit a felony than youth under community supervision.
Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement
Council of State Governments Justice Center
A recent and unprecedented study of nearly one million Texas public school students, followed for over six years, reveals nearly 60 percent were either suspended or expelled. This and additional findings are presented in a special report prepared by the Public Policy Research Institute of Texas A&M University in partnership with the Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center. Breaking Schools’ Rules: A Statewide Study of How School Discipline Relates to Students’ Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement features these and other key findings: *Of the nearly 1 million public secondary school students studied, about 15 percent were suspended or expelled 11 times or more; nearly half of these students with 11 or more disciplinary actions were involved in the juvenile justice system. *African-American students and those with particular disabilities were disproportionately disciplined for discretionary actions. *Repeated suspensions and expulsions predicted poor academic outcomes. Only 40 percent of students disciplined 11 times or more graduated from high school during the study period, and 31 percent of students disciplined one or more times repeated their grade at least once. *Schools that had similar characteristics, including the racial composition and economic status of the student body, varied greatly in how frequently they suspended or expelled students. This study relied on more than 6 million school and juvenile justice records (for every student who was in seventh grade in a Texas public school in academic years 2000, 2001 and 2002), even tracking those students who moved from one school to another within the state.
The economic effects of exclusionary discipline on grade retention and high school dropout. (in Closing the School Discipline Gap: Research for Policymakers)
Teachers College Press
Edited Volume - forthcoming
Representing the Mentally Ill Defender: An Evaluation of Advocacy Alternatives
Task Force on Indigent Defense
Nearly one in three Texas prison and state jail inmates have a history with the state mental health system. These individuals commonly experience repeated contact with the justice system. Specialized Mental Health Public Defender (MHPD) programs are a cutting-edge therapeutic defense approach that targets the needs of this special population. MH Public Defenders are familiar with mental health-related law, and they provide social work services during and after the trial to improve the chance of a favorable case outcome. In another increasingly prevalent model of therapeutic justice, Mental Health Courts (MHC) provide court-based case management and close supervision to divert defendants away from jail and into long-term community mental health treatment. PPRI’s innovative evaluation of these two initiatives combined 800,000 criminal case records from three of the five largest cities in Texas with mental health records from the State Department of State Health Services. Among other things, the study found: *By linking defendants to mental health treatment, individuals involved in both the MH Public Defender and MH Courts were significantly more likely to stay engaged in mental health services for at least six months after the criminal case was disposed. *Both MH Public Defenders and MH Courts significantly reduced the chance of a guilty verdict. *Among those mentally ill defendants who were found guilty, however, those represented by a public defender were less likely to spend time in jail and more likely to have a sentence of probation. *Both MH Public Defenders and MH Courts successfully reduced the chance a person with mental illness would re-offend. These findings are a strong endorsement for the continued support of criminal justice programs designed to treat rather than punish defendants whose offense is a result of a mental illness.