People who struggle with mental health or substance use disorders are far more likely to be arrested and incarcerated than members of the general public. Studies by the Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Statistics found that about two out of every five people in America’s jails and prisons suffer from mental health disorders[i] and three in five have a substance use disorder.[ii]
The Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA's) Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) helps state prosecutors, defense attorneys, community supervision, courts, and corrections agencies transform the way they work with people who have mental health and substance use disorders.
Over the past 17 years, JMHCP has awarded grants to 680 corrections agencies in 49 states and 2 U.S. territories. These grantee organizations have developed innovative programs that improve public safety responses and outcomes for individuals with mental health and substance use disorders, connecting them to the help and resources they need.
Examples of grantee successes with BJA funding include:
- Salt Lake County, Utah: Beginning in 2014, Salt Lake County courts, corrections, and law enforcement officials conducted a detailed analysis of people who were entering the county's criminal justice system. The study found that people with mental health disorders stayed in jail longer and returned more often than people without those disorders. But the county did not have mechanisms to identify people with mental health disorders when they entered the criminal justice system or connect them with services when they exited.
County officials created an assessment process to screen everyone entering the county jail for mental health and substance use disorders. They shared this information among local criminal justice and behavioral health agencies. And they created several pilot programs to intensely supervise people with behavioral health disorders when they reenter the community.
- Dauphin County, Pennsylvania: In 2016, the government of Dauphin County set out to reduce the number of people in its correctional facility who have mental health disorders. Like Salt Lake County, Dauphin County conducted a detailed analysis of the people entering and leaving its facility. And Dauphin County found results strikingly similar to Salt Lake — People with mental health disorders are incarcerated longer and return to incarceration more often than people who do not have those disorders.
Dauphin County developed a standard mental health screening tool and administered it to anyone entering the country's correctional facility. And they developed a process for connecting people who are reentering the community with the mental health services they need.
- Franklin County, Ohio: In 2013, alarmed by the rate at which people with mental health disorders were cycling in and out of the county jail, leaders of the county's criminal justice system and behavioral health agencies set out to address this problem. They conducted a detailed analysis of the county’s jail population and came to familiar conclusions: People with mental health disorders stay in jail longer and return more often than people without those disorders.
As a result of the study, the county provided crisis response intervention training (CRIT) to more of its police officers. The county also developed a pretrial assessment tool for mental health disorders that was used to divert some defendants from traditional prosecution into alternative programs and provide appropriate treatment for others who were incarcerated.
BJA's JMHCP is helping prosecutors, defense attorneys, community supervision, courts, and corrections agencies across the nation improve their response to people with mental health and substance use disorders—and improved community safety and access to public health services in the process.
To learn more about the program or to apply for grant funding, visit the JMHCP webpage.