Last year, Massachusetts passed legislation representing the most significant changes to the state’s criminal justice system in decades. This legislation took concrete steps to incentivize good behavior in prison, divert people to treatment and programming as an alternative to incarceration, and strengthen community supervision.
Before these units existed, people experiencing a mental health crisis who came into contact with police were often taken to jail, which caused crowding in county jails that are simply not equipped to provide the kind of care and treatment that crisis stabilization units can.
“We have just finished the first module of the course and can see the commitment and determination mounting as the women in our class advance through each session,” said Deborah Simmons, founder of The Reentry Initiative, which is delivering CBI-CA to participants in the Denver Women’s Correctional Facility in Colorado.
“Stepping Up was born out of conversations with community leaders, law enforcement officials, and behavioral health specialists, who told us that the number of people with mental illnesses coming into their jails was a top challenge for them,” said Megan Quattlebaum, director of the CSG Justice Center.
The conference will explore gaps in services, discover new and improved practices, share cutting edge research, and motivate participants to explore positive case outcomes for youth involved in the delinquency system.
![[Apply Now] Process Evaluation of the Community Navigator Program](https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/New-York-County-District-Attorney’s-Office-DANY.jpg)
The program provides support for process evaluations of the Community Navigators Program. Navigators connect individuals to the resources and services they need to improve their well-being and to prevent undesired outcomes, including criminal justice involvement and victimization.
![[Apply Now] Establishment of a National Center on Restorative Justice](https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Council-of-State-Governments-CSG-e1573837419381.png)
The program, funded by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, will provide funding to an accredited university of higher education or an accredited law school for the purposes of establishing a National Center on Restorative Justice.
In this webinar staff from BJA provide an overview of the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) Category 2 grant requirements.
In this webinar staff from BJA provide an overview of the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) Category 3 grant requirements. CSG Justice Center staff explain the training and technical assistance opportunities, and the other resources available to law enforcement grantees.
The data collection and evaluation learning community series for JMHCP and SCA grantees focuses on topics related to quality assurance and implementation science. This session was focused on “study and act” of the Plan, Do, Study, Act process featuring Dr. Faye Taxman from George Mason University and grantee speaker, Melissa Pierson from Franklin County, OH.
In this webinar, staff from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance provide an overview about the post-award budget, grant management, and performance measurement requirements.
In this webinar, CSG Justice Center staff explain the training and technical assistance opportunities and resources available to grantees, and staff from the Bureau of Justice Assistance provide an overview of the post-award grant management requirements.
In this webinar, presenters discuss six questions that law enforcement executives should consider when developing or enhancing Police-Mental Health Collaborations in their jurisdiction and share practical approaches that have been implemented in the field.
This webinar highlights two jurisdictions—the State of Oklahoma and Douglas County, Nebraska—and explains how they used Collaborative Comprehensive Case Plans to enhance their case planning processes and promote recovery, successful diversion from the criminal justice system to treatment, or reentry to the community among their participants.
This webinar focusses on the programming developed specifically for veterans in two jurisdictions—the Middlesex County Sheriff’s Office in Massachusetts and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department in California—and explains how these jurisdictions developed partnerships with their Veterans Affairs resources and other entities in their criminal justice systems.
In this webinar, representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Reentry Resource Center review the FY19 Improving Reentry for Adults with Co-occurring Substance Abuse and Mental Illness application process.
In this webinar, representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and The Council of State Governments Justice Center review the FY2019 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program application process.
This toolkit reviews promising strategies that state Medicaid programs are adopting to address the substance use disorder crisis, specifically the opioid epidemic, including for people involved in the criminal justice system.
This report presents opportunities to expand what Douglas County is already doing well and improve upon systems performance.
Developed with funding support from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance, this policy brief describes key components to developing a systems-wide diversion strategy and focuses on the fundamental agencies within the criminal justice system that can lead the implementation of diversion interventions, with the goal of diverting people with mental illness from the justice system and into community-based treatment and support services.
This toolkit offers information and resources about officer wellness and safety and provides links to outside resources, including information on the increased risk of suicide for law enforcement officers and the effect of secondary trauma.
This report explores the persistence of jail expansion by examining a convenience sample of 77 counties in 31 states that considered or pursued jail expansion between 2000 and 2019 and identifies three major arguments county officials make to support construction.
The Judge Ed Emmett Mental Health Diversion Center allows people with mental illness who commit non-violent offenses to skip jail. They are offered space in the 28-bed diversion center, counseling, and case workers to prevent the person arrested from cycling in and out of jail.
A new study published in the journal BMC Public Health reports that children who were physically or sexually abused, neglected or otherwise treated badly, are at higher risk of showing delinquent behavior or offending the law, as they grow into their teens and later into young adults.
It took five years of effort in federal court, but my organization, The Fortune Society just won a precedent-setting settlement of a landmark civil rights case that shows how advocacy groups can bring lawsuits against private landlords who impose blanket bans on renting apartments to people with criminal records.
County officials representing urban counties at the 2019 Large Urban County Caucus Symposium in Miami-Dade County in Florida toured a new facility that will offer a full continuum of care for justice-involved individuals with mental illnesses.
Judges, law enforcement officials and health agency representatives filled a room on Wednesday at the Hawaii State Supreme Court for the inaugural Hawaii Summit on Improving the Governmental Response to Community Mental Illness.
For too many women who survive abuse and violence, particularly women of color and women living in poverty, the support and the care needed to cope with and heal from pain and trauma is simply not available in prisons or jails.
A new reentry program called Project Blue is a first-of-its-kind partnership to help formerly incarcerated individuals in Erie County transition back into society.
The Link in Minneapolis, MN, and both Larkin Street Youth Services and Collaborative Courts for Superior Courts in San Francisco, CA, shared how they are leveraging partnerships between the homelessness services and justice systems to disrupt and end the cycle of homelessness among youth and young adults.
In 2018 the county was recognized as one of 16 innovator counties among more than 450 counties that have joined the Stepping Up Initiative, a national effort to divert people with mental illness from jails into treatment.
New Castle County Police are among many moving to offer treatment in lieu of an arrest. The Council of State Governments Justice Center says that “police departments are increasingly seeking help from the behavioral health system.”