In Focus: Prioritizing Policy, Practice, and Funding Improvements

This new brief from the Stepping Up partners guides counties through the process of defining the most important cross-system changes to help reduce the number of people in jails who have serious mental illnesses. To have the greatest possible impact on the prevalence of serious mental illness in jails, these changes should address one or more of Stepping Up’s four key measures: (1) the number of people booked into jail who have serious mental illnesses; (2) their average length of stay in jail; (3) how many people are connected to treatment and services; and (4) their recidivism rates.