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Baseline data highlight where some of the best opportunities exist to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in the jail and provide benchmarks against which progress can be measured. The following four key measures are important indicators for counties to track and can help structure county efforts to address these challenges: 1) The number of people with mental illnesses booked into jail; 2) Their average length of stay; 3) The percentage of people with mental illnesses connected to treatment; and 4) Their recidivism rates. Counties may consider comparing these four key measures to those of the general population in the jail to identify disparities. These comparisons can be especially useful when data on both populations are disaggregated further by charge type, criminogenic risk level, race, gender or other demographic factors. Read More

This handbook is designed to complement the Reducing the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jail: Six Questions County Leaders Need to Ask (Six Questions) framework as a step-by-step facilitation guide for project coordinators. Read More

Released by Stepping Up: A National Initiative to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jail, this report is intended to assist counties with developing and implementing a systems-level, data-driven plan that can lead to measurable reductions in the number of people with mental illnesses in local jails. The report serves as a blueprint for counties to assess their existing efforts to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jail by considering specific questions and progress-tracking measures. Read More

The goal of this publication is to provide rural county leaders with ideas and strategies for addressing these challenges by providing examples of counties that have successfully done so or are making progress. There is no one strategy that will work for all counties, or all rural counties. But county leaders are encouraged to learn from each other’s experiences and adapt their peers’ policies, practices and programs to fit the needs of their county and residents. Read More

Across the country, people in many jurisdictions who frequently encounter criminal justice, behavioral health, and social service systems are experiencing behavioral health crises and require different levels and intensities of services. This three-part series features three Stepping Up Innovator Counties that are also MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge sites. Representatives from these sites provide information on how to effectively serve and increase engagement with people who frequently cycle in and out of jails, emergency departments, homeless shelters, and other community-based settings. This session provides an overview of engagement challenges in service and treatment and strategies for how to work through them at both at the individual and systems levels. Read More

Counties across the country have made progress addressing the Stepping Up Four Key Measures. Yet counties often struggle with Key Measure 3: post-release connections to care for people who have a serious mental illness (SMI). This measure necessarily involves a handoff from the county jail system to the community-based behavioral health system, with implications for data collection and treatment initiation. This webinar features representatives from the Stepping Up initiative and Johnson County, Kansas, who will discuss the importance of tracking data on this key measure and how counties can set up systems to track this data accurately. Read More

Across the country, many jurisdictions find that some of the people who frequently encounter criminal justice, behavioral health, and social service systems are experiencing behavioral health crises and require different levels and intensity of services. Featuring three Stepping Up Innovator Counties that are also MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge sites, this series provides information on how to effectively serve and increase engagement with people who frequently cycle in and out of jails, emergency departments, homeless shelters, and other community-based settings. This first session provides an overview of how the sites identified these populations and explores their continuum of care for behavioral health crisis services. Read More

Since its launch in 2015, more than 500 counties across 43 states have joined the Stepping Up initiative and worked to reduce the prevalence of mental illness in their jails. Stepping Up partners recently announced a new call to action—Set, Measure, Achieve—to support counties in setting targets to reduce the number of people with serious mental illnesses in their jails, measuring progress toward meeting these targets, and achieving results. As part of the new call to action, this webinar will explain how counties can obtain data to establish baselines for Stepping Up’s four key measures and set targets for reducing indicators of serious mental illness in jails. A representative from a county sheriff’s office will discuss the role of sheriffs in facilitating access to data on serious mental illness in jails. Speakers will also address specific challenges that can complicate counties’ efforts to identify accurate baseline data. IT staff from county sheriffs’ offices and county jails are encouraged to attend this webinar. Read More

Set, Measure, Achieve is a new national call to action for Stepping Up counties to establish and reach measurable goals that demonstrate reduced prevalence of mental illness in jails. Join us for a special virtual event on September 30, to commemorate five years of Stepping Up and learn more about how counties can participate in Set, Measure, Achieve. Read More