At a recent North Dakota Justice Reinvestment Oversight Committee meeting, CSG Justice Center staff highlighted recent decreases in prison admissions that resulted from alcohol and drug offenses and probation revocations. These declines seem to be the cause of a 6.5-percent drop in the state’s total prison population in FY2018, which exceeded expectations, and have reinforced the state’s efforts to increase behavioral health services for people in the criminal justice system.
CSG Justice Center staff spoke with four Second Chance Act Innovations in Reentry Initiative grantees about their experiences fostering effective partnerships between criminal justice practitioners and the researchers evaluating their programs. These programs span the country and the justice system, serving clients within courts, prisons, jails, and in the community.
“Part of the success of this has been an openness to identifying how we can do things differently in our community when it comes to mental health care and the criminal justice system,” said Paula Verrett, a NAMI recovery specialist who has worked directly with the OCMHC since its inception.
Recently, the U.S. Congress approved the $1.3 trillion Fiscal Year 2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill that would set government funding through Sep. 30, 2018. The bill provides $30.3 billion for the Department of Justice and includes $2.9 billion for various state and local law enforcement assistance grant programs.
Victim restitution can be a vitally important part of a crime victim’s recovery, yet is often poorly understood and managed by states. Very few states have been able to show substantial progress in improving restitution, but Hawaii has done so and has the data to prove it. This success story was highlighted at the National Association of Attorneys General annual winter meeting in February in Washington, DC, in the panel discussion “Helping Crime Victims Recover from Financial Losses.”
The 2018 National Tribal Judicial and Court Personnel conference will provide quality culturally-appropriate continuing legal education to more than 200 tribal judges, peacemakers, and court personnel.
The Public Safety Assessment (PSA) was developed by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation as part of a larger effort to improve decision making and fairness in the criminal justice system and increase public safety. When implemented correctly, the PSA can help eliminate subjective decision making at the judicial level. The training was administered by LJAF staff.
Judicial Work at the Interface of Mental Health and Criminal Justice is a four-hour live interactive training designed for all judges who hear criminal cases. The program was created by judges and psychiatrists working in partnership with the American Psychiatric Association Foundation and the CSG Justice Center with input from The National Judicial College and SAMHSA’s GAINS Center for Behavioral Health and Justice Transformation.
The presenters of this webinar discuss overcoming the challenges to effective community engagement and explore ways to increase the number of juvenile record clearances.
This webinar explores ways that juvenile defenders and civil legal aid attorneys can partner to share expertise and provide essential legal representation for youth facing the collateral consequences of having criminal records.
This webinar provides an overview of the primer, Supporting People with Serious Mental Illnesses and Reducing Their Risk of Contact with the Criminal Justice System, a resource designed to help familiarize psychiatrists with the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) Model—which is used by criminal justice professionals to identify the factors that contribute to a person’s risk of recidivism and tailor interventions based on the identified factors—and provide information on ways psychiatrists can help address the particular needs of this population.
This resource center is an online clearinghouse of information, training, and other resources that support a variety of state, local, and tribal users, including BJA COAP grantees, policymakers, partner agencies and associations, peer recovery coaches, and families affected by the nationwide opioid epidemic.
This publication provides recommendations for state and local advocacy to help end the over-incarceration of people living with mental health and substance use needs using a Sequential Intercept Mapping Model.
In this episode of The National Judicial College Podcast, host Joseph Sawyer discusses pretrial release and the future of cash bail with Michael Jones of Pinnacle Justice Consulting and Timothy Schnacke from The Center of Legal and Evidence-Based Practices.
Minnesota’s federal reentry court is now one of about 60 nationwide, but it’s the only one that matches participants with mentors from the community, some of whom have their own stories of readjusting to life after being locked up.
In mid-May, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann launched a pilot program that could change the way the city handles some young adults charged with crimes. The city’s first ever pre-file diversion program is designed to help young people escape the consequences that accompany a criminal record, like the difficulty securing financial opportunities, finding housing, gaining employment and sometimes even the right to vote.
As state lawmakers face a pricey proposal for a $500 million prison expansion, Idaho judges have been studying the state’s felony sentencing laws and processes with an eye to reforms.
According to the Prince William County Office of Criminal Justice Services’ 2017 Annual Report, the average pretrial daily case load increased from 352 in 2015 to 507 in 2017, saving the jail 56,894 jail bed days. And the successful compliance rates increased from 84 percent in 2015 to 89 percent in 2017.