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.
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.
Arkansas’s first crisis stabilization unit (CSU) opened in Sebastian County on March 1 with high praise from Governor Asa Hutchinson. This center, which will provide services to people experiencing mental health crises, is the first of four such centers planned across the state. Officials are hopeful that it will serve as a model that other states can follow.
The Council of State Governments (CSG) recently announced that Megan Quattlebaum, research scholar in law at Yale University Law School and lecturer in law at Columbia University Law School, will be the next director of The CSG Justice Center.
A 55-year-old U.S. Army veteran, Ronald Forbes is on the brink of expanding his Oakland, California-based catering company in partnership with his sister, Catherine. Soon, he’ll move the business to a commercial space, but for now he’s practicing his recipes for barbecue chicken, ribs, and his mom’s potato salad at home.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced $36 million in FY2017 Second Chance Act grants that were awarded to 68 jurisdictions across the country.
When Sharon Hadley arrived at Santa Maria Hostel in July 2012, she had just completed the latest in her decade-long string of sentences for drug-related offenses. “Now that I look back over my life, I can see how the wheels started coming off even before I really knew it,” Hadley said. “I recidivated 13 times. Each incarceration was longer and longer, and I was more and more hopeless.”
This webinar will provide an overview of national estimates of incarcerated veterans; explain components of the Veterans Health Administration’s veterans justice programs; expand awareness of the needs of veterans in the justice system; and discuss new developments in the Veterans Administration and community interventions to provide services to veterans in the justice system.
The program provides funding to help agencies establish or expand and maintain ACT programs for individuals with a serious mental illness.
This year’s APPA conference will focus on the latest research and the most critical issues facing community corrections professionals by offering a number of educational workshops and trainings, ranging from topics in behavioral health treatment, community supervision, pretrial supervision, juvenile justice, reentry, workplace safety, and more.
This year’s IACP conference will include topics that address contemporary or emerging issues confronting the law enforcement profession and the leaders of law enforcement agencies.
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.
In this webinar, BJS statistician Jennifer Bronson reviews the findings from two reports and discusses how jurisdictions around the country—namely Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program grantees—can use this information.
In this webinar, staff from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance and The Council of State Governments Justice Center review information for Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program applicants and grantees on the grant management and budget process.
This webinar reviews effective methods for building and implementing a research partnership, with a particular emphasis on agencies that have recently established a new research partnership or are planning on starting a research partnership.
In this webinar, two victim services reentry professionals from corrections departments discuss victim service programming for agencies and organizations that work with people in the criminal justice system.
During the webinar, BJA staff provide an overview of the Second Chance Act, requirements of the co-occurring disorders grant program, and grant management, and NRRC staff provide an overview of the training, technical assistance, research, tools, and Planning & Implementation (P&I) Guide related to the grant.
In this webinar, panelists discuss best practices to ensure collaborative responses are maintained based on the drug of choice in a given community, effective training for agency staff is utilized, and that effective communication between community supervision and treatment providers is maintained.
In this webinar, CSG Justice Center staff explain the training and technical assistance opportunities and resources available to grantees. Staff from the Bureau of Justice Assistance will also participate and provide an overview of the post-award grant management requirements.
Grant funding often provides seed money to help agencies launch new programs. However, once the grant has expended, finding additional funds to sustain a program can be challenging. This webinar discusses how other funding streams can be leveraged, and partnerships developed, to help sustain a program.
This report from the Vera Institute of Justice examines New York State’s overdose education and naloxone distribution program and what lessons it can offer related to corrections-based responses to the opioid epidemic.
This brief from the Campaign for Youth Justice examines individual and systematic factors considered as critical when judges and prosecutors are determining whether to prosecute a youth as an adult.
This TIP document reviews the use of three Food and Drug Administration-approved medications used to treat opioid use disorder, as well as the other strategies and services needed to support recovery.
This report from the National Association of Counties explains Medicaid’s role in the U.S. healthcare system and its benefit to counties in particular, especially in the areas of behavioral health and treatment for substance use disorders.
This report from the National Association of Counties is aimed at educating federal policymakers on issues involving Medicaid and justice-involved individuals.
This report from the Beacon Center of Tennessee features stories of people affected by the current state justice system and focuses specifically on juvenile justice, occupational licensing, and incentives.
This report from The Pew Charitable Trusts examines whether stiff prison sentences for people who have violated drug laws deters drug misuse, distribution, and other drug-law violations.
This interactive report from the Vera Institute of Justice identifies the major trends and developments in justice systems over the past year, examining what reforms are and are not working across the country.
This report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities highlights the importance of the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion in increasing insurance coverage among people with opioid use disorders.
This new online portal from the Addiction Policy Forum is designed to help individuals and families struggling with addiction find comprehensive information and resources.
New-arrest recidivism and return-to-prison recidivism are two of the four ways the report counts recidivism rates. It also counts two other categories related to new crimes—new convictions and new sentences. These categories overlap since, for example, anyone who is sentenced also has been arrested and convicted.
The health care that prisons provide affects more than simply the well-being of incarcerated people. Inadequate treatment for infectious diseases and behavioral health conditions, for example, can undermine efforts to strengthen public health and safety in the communities to which individuals return.
“Honestly, most people thought heroin was a city thing,” said Pat Schou, executive director of the Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network. “But we quickly learned that wasn’t the case. It affects everyone.”
Each year, an estimated 2 million people suffering from mental illness are booked into county jails. In Kansas City, Missouri, like other places around the country, officials are looking for a better way to get those people the help they need to get back on their feet.
Dane County is planning a study budgeted at $100,000 to find gaps in services and ways to patch them. “You can’t fix a problem until you fully understand it,” Dane County Executive Joe Parisi said.
Among those selected through a Washington, D.C.-based research institute that analyzed jail and hospital data, 60 people now live at the Mental Health Center of Denver’s Sanderson Apartments, where natural light floods the hallways and outdoor gardens offer quiet space.
Doug Deason, a Dallas investor and GOP megadonor, hopes the study will yield a reentry model that will one day be scalable in red and blue states, urban and rural areas across America. Improving the lives of formerly incarcerated people, he said, should be a goal on which everyone can agree.
New York City is blessed with an array of community crime prevention programs, including dozens of youth development agencies and organizations implementing the Cure Violence model, originally developed in Chicago.
In the past year the department has trained nearly all its officers to handle a mental health crisis and as a result, the department says its use of force and officer-involved shootings are down exponentially over the past 15 months.
Organizations representing state officials and people with mental illness say no one wants to go back to warehousing patients. But they also say that federal action is needed to reverse a decades-old law known as the “IMD exclusion,” which bars Medicaid from paying for treatment in mental health facilities with more than 16 beds. IMD stands for “institution for mental diseases.”