Since the 1990s specialized courts have emerged in the judicial landscape. This article focuses on mental health courts conceptualized as hybridization between law and psychiatry. Drawing on a doctoral project, this article will explore how discourses pertaining to mental health and social normativity are embedded in this specialized court and influence their practices. Specifically, it will illustrate the ways in which biographical narratives, responsibility and activation logics have a decisive impact on the journey of the persons accused. A transversal look will shed light on the tension between social vulnerability and the penal regulation of complex social problems.