Arkansas’s Justice Reinvestment Approach: Enhancing Local Mental Health Services for People in the Criminal Justice System

After using a justice reinvestment approach, Arkansas passed legislation that creates local crisis stabilization units that will allow people with mental illnesses who commit low-level offenses to receive treatment in the community rather than go to prison. Trained law enforcement officers will be able to divert people into these units, alleviating the jail backlog and reserving bed space in the state’s full prisons for those who are convicted of serious and violent offenses. This publication presents a summary of the justice reinvestment process and legislation.