Archive

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) supports communities across the country in their work to address overrepresentation of people with behavioral health needs in the criminal justice system. For five years, between 2015 and 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs’ Bureau of Justice Assistance… Read More

Individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) have long advocated for addressing disparities in the behavioral health and criminal justice systems. Such pervasive inequities can be complex to understand and overwhelming to counties that are just starting to confront them. The Stepping Up framework offers a… Read More

This overview of Stepping Up highlights the accomplishments of the initiative to date, including county successes, and discusses the focus areas for the future of Stepping Up… Read More

In Focus: Collecting and Analyzing Baseline Data is a new brief from the Stepping Up partners designed to help counties collect and analyze baseline data on the prevalence of people in their jails who have serious mental illnesses (SMI), specifically along the recommended four key measures: (1) the number of people booked into jail who have SMI; (2) their average length of stay in jail; (3) the percentage of people with SMI who are connected to treatment; and (4) their recidivism rates. Once collected, these baseline data allow county leaders to identify the system improvements and programs needed to reduce the number of people in jail who have SMI and provide benchmarks against which progress can be measured. Read More

In Focus: Conducting a Comprehensive Process Analysis is a new brief from the Stepping Up partners that presents counties with steps for examining how people who have serious mental illnesses (SMI) move through a county’s criminal justice and behavioral health systems. A process analysis can help counties determine appropriate pathways for people with SMI, identify what resources exist across systems for this population, and determine how much relevant data is available and where more data is needed to track Stepping Up’s four key measures. Read More

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. Read More

In Focus: Implementing Mental Health Screening and Assessment is a new brief from the Stepping Up partners designed to help counties identify the number of people booked into jails who have serious mental illnesses (SMI) and to better connect these individuals to treatment. Determining the number of people who have SMI in jails allows counties to develop or refine strategic plans that will have the greatest impact on addressing this population’s needs. Read More