John Petrila

John Petrila, JD, LLM, is Senior Policy Advisor at Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute. Previously, he was Chair and Professor of Health Policy and Management at the University of South Florida College of Public Health. He is a recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and of the University of South Florida President’s Faculty Excellence Award. Mr. Petrila’s research interests include the diversion of people with mental illnesses from the justice system, coercion, and strategies to reduce recidivism of heavy users of the treatment and justice systems. He is also a national expert on information sharing. Recent papers focus on emergency hospitalizations of people with mental illnesses, national review of emergency civil commitment legislation, the current status of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and use of the sequential intercept model as a tool for enhancing information sharing across the justice and behavioral health systems.