The majority of people in prison and jail have a substance use disorder. Despite the promise demonstrated by some treatment programs for people who are incarcerated, just a fraction of the people who need services for substance abuse receive it. Connecting people incarcerated to treatment programs proven to be effective, prioritizing resources for those nearing release, and encouraging community-based aftercare will ensure better outcomes for people released from prisons and jails, and the communities to which they return.
Providing answers on relevant topics concerning Mental Health, Health and Substance Abuse topics.
A new series of free web-based training modules that provide officers with effective tools for readily recognizing signs of mental illness and interacting with people who may be in crisis has been produced through a partnership between The Guidance Center (a nonprofit child and family mental health service provider) and the Los Angeles Police Department, the Long Beach Police Department, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
The new National Inventory of Collateral Consequences of Conviction resource compiles thousands of state and federal statutes into a searchable database, making it easier to identify these obscure regulations that can be triggered by a particular conviction.
The CSG Justice Center has released an updated version of the 50-State Report on Public Safety that includes 2017 crime and arrest data. The report is a web-based resource that combines extensive data analyses, case studies and recommended strategies from all 50 states to help policymakers address their state’s specific public safety challenges.
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.
The Stepping Up initiative recently launched a national effort to help counties collect accurate, accessible data on the number of people entering their jails who have mental illnesses. As part of the effort, seven rural and urban “Innovator Counties” have been selected as models for their expertise in accurately identifying these individuals and consistently collecting data on them.
The Baltimore County, Maryland, county executive recently released a report that provides recommendations for the county to better position its police-mental health collaboration (PMHC), the Baltimore County Crisis Response System, to provide an effective and comprehensive response that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and maximizes both public safety and health outcomes.
This webinar will cover system-level strategies to maximize outcomes for women in the criminal justice system and ensure the sustainability of gender-responsive services. To highlight these strategies in action, representatives from Franklin County, Ohio, will describe gender-responsive system changes that have been made in their jurisdiction.
In this webinar, participants will learn how to stratify justice system populations and build an integrated, strategic framework to successfully address the needs of persons often referred to as “familiar faces” or high utilizers, of justice, primary health, and behavioral health systems.
The 2019 Winter Training Institute will provide an interactive learning experience under the theme “A Nation in Crisis: Addressing Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health in our Community.”
The purpose of this solicitation is to offer free technical assistance to communities nationwide who are prepared for and interested in expanding their training efforts to create a trauma-informed system.
In this webinar, representatives from the NRRC, along with staff from BJA, provide an overview of the Second Chance Act’s Reentry for Adults with Co-Occurring Substance Abuse and Mental Illness (CSAMI) grant program and explain the training and technical assistance opportunities that are available to grantees, including the Planning & Implementation Guide, and other resources available to grantees.
This webinar includes information on planning and coordination, behavioral health treatment, cognitive interventions, and community supervision practices as well as community resources such as housing and recovery support services.
This webinar focusses on best practices for screening and assessment of people in the criminal justice system who have opioid addictions.
In this webinar, Leigh Ann Davis, director of the National Center on Criminal Justice & Disability, discusses differences and similarities between various kinds of behavioral health diagnoses and I/DD, how to identify someone with I/DD, and tips for to work more effectively with people with I/DD in correctional settings.
In this webinar, representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and the National Reentry Resource Center review the FY18 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 CSG Justice Center review the FY2018 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program grant application process.
This webinar provides an overview of national estimates of incarcerated veterans; explains components of the Veterans Health Administration’s veterans justice programs; expands awareness of the needs of veterans in the justice system; and discusses new developments in the Veterans Administration and community interventions to provide services to veterans in the justice system.
This webinar features Roger Peters, PhD, a licensed clinical psychologist and professor in the Department of Mental Health Law and Policy at the Louis de la Parte Florida Mental Health Institute, University of South Florida. The webinar discusses the prevalence of co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders among people involved in the criminal justice system, as well as effective screening and assessment instruments to use with this population.
During this webinar, judges and other court personnel learn about the tips for recognizing indications of a mental illness and/or substance use disorder in the courtroom, the process for treatment recommendation and referral for defendants with behavioral health needs, and how to collaborate with behavioral health care providers in their communities
In this webinar, CSG Justice Center staff explain the training and technical assistance opportunities and resources available to FY17 JMHCP Category 3 Implementation & Expansion grantees.
This fact sheet from the National Reentry Resource Center describes the best practices that correctional, community-based behavioral health, and probation and parole agencies can implement within their systems to ensure reentry for people who have opioid addictions is safe and successful.
This brief from the CSG Justice Center, in partnership with the California Association of County Executives, outlines how California county executives can leverage their funding opportunities to maximize local mental health and public safety efforts.
This publication outlines the scope of a Behavioral Health Justice Reinvestment approach in Oregon to develop a statewide policy framework to help support tribal government, county, and local systems in improving recidivism and health outcomes for the small but important group of people who repeatedly cycle through the public safety and health systems.
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.
This publication examines the barriers to treating youth involved in violent crime in the community instead of incarceration as well as gauges support for proposed reforms through interviews with members of the victims’ community.
This tip sheet from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service’s GAINS Center draws on research that has implications for people of racial and ethnic minority backgrounds who have mental illnesses or substance addictions who often face substantial barriers to accessing community-based services prior to their justice involvement.
This new journal from the National Association of Drug Court Professionals is dedicated to the topic of identifying and rectifying racial, ethnic, and gender disparities in treatment courts.
This publication from the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness lays out a plan for ending homelessness that focuses on identifying and describing essential federal strategies to build effective, lasting systems that aim to work both in the present and to be able to respond quickly and efficiently when housing instability and homelessness occur in the future.
This paper from the California Health Care Foundation reviews recent changes to the Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Records, 42 Code of Federal Regulations related to substance addiction treatment.
Under new guidelines, states will be able to apply for the ability to use Medicaid reimbursement for psychiatric care provided in treatment facilities with more than 16 beds, which is currently prohibited by the Medicaid Institutions for Mental Diseases (IMD) exclusion.
“People that are healthy are more likely to be able to find work,” said Tom Betti, press secretary for the Ohio Department of Medicaid. “In the long run that saves taxpayer dollars. They are healthier, employed and not reincarcerated.”
On average, the work of Clark County’s four circuit courts each do the work of 1.38 courts, Overall, the county’s courts are the sixth-most overburdened out of the 92 counties in Indiana.
“Massachusetts has been a leader in this, really taking advantage of a groundswell across the nation of general support for good reentry (programming),” said Nicole Jarrett, director of the National Reentry Resource Center.
The county offers a crisis call line through Northwest Connections, which is a third-party organization the county’s mental health unit contracts with to handle the county’s crisis call work. This allows the county 24/7, 365-day coverage for crisis calls and is used in the jail.
In this recent study, the National Reentry Resource Center and the Council of State Governments Justice Center study looked at New Jersey and 10 other states with significant declines in their three-year return-to-prison rates. New Jersey’s rate dropped from a high of 37 percent in 2007 to 29.8 percent in 2013, according to the most current data available.
“We have good science,” Fred Osher, M.D., a retired health systems and services policy director for the Council of State Governments Justice Center, told us. “We have policies that are associated with a reduction of people with mental illnesses in the justice system. But we haven’t put it together and sustained it over time.”
Key agency administrators, staff, and consumer advocates from the mental health, substance abuse, and criminal justice system in Scotts Bluff County participated in Sequential Intercept Mapping which focused strategic planning efforts on cross-systems collaboration and the reduction of system and service barriers with an integrated, local action plan.
Called the Helping Overdose through Prevention and Education, or HOPE, program, a team consisting of a police officer, paramedic and a social worker has a goal of meeting with a person who overdosed within three to five days to connect them with appropriate assistance.
Rhonda Benson, executive director of the Butler County chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said each honoree epitomizes the purpose of the Stepping Up Initiative, which is to provide services and help for the mentally ill rather than having them repeatedly jailed.