Government is still moving forward with plans to launch a mental health court, but issues must be addressed before the court has its first session.A spokesman for the Ministry of Legal Affairs said suitable facilities must be secured and legislation must be amended before the proposed Mental Health Treatment Court programme can be implemented.“The Government is committed to modernising our criminal justice system, and the implementation of a mental health court is an important step in this process,” the spokesman said. “Stakeholders, including Ministry of Legal Affairs officials (Legal Aid, Department of Public Prosecutions and Magistrates) and the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute, continue to push forward on this initiative.“Policy and procedure manuals are being created and relationships with community stakeholders continue to be developed.”He described the programme as being in its “developmental stages”, saying a group including representatives of the Department of Public Prosecution, Legal Aid and a Magistrate are scheduled to go for overseas training at a US-based mental health court in September.Judges and Magistrates have repeatedly stressed in recent years the need for improving how offenders with mental health issues are dealt with.According to statistics, between ten and 15 percent of Bermuda’s prison population are considered mentally ill.Attorney General Mark Pettingill told The Royal Gazette in May the matter must be dealt with promptly, and said a pilot programme would be launched in a matter of weeks.“There’s no question that we have to do something about it because it’s more prevalent,” he said. “We have more [homeless people] and a lot of the people that you see on the streets are not well mentally. Sometimes they end up involved in petty crimes, or even in more serious crimes, and we need to address it.“The pilot will be up and running in a matter of weeks and the next big step will be the need to find a residential facility that can house up to ten men [as] this tends to be a male problem.“We’ll have to see how we’re going to allot resources for that we don’t have millions of dollars to build one. We have to be about austerity, but we have to address these problems.”