Archive

The CSG Justice Center is highlighting three of these communities: Bernalillo County, New Mexico; Fulton County, Georgia; and Polk County, Iowa. Each of these jurisdictions is both a Stepping Up Innovator and a MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge site. This snapshot focuses on the sites’ successes and challenges in their work with priority populations, as well as some of their upcoming goals. Read more about where these counties started. Read More

The CSG Justice Center is highlighting three of these communities: Bernalillo County, New Mexico; Fulton County, Georgia; and Polk County, Iowa. To understand their progress and their challenges, we will check in with these counties over the course of the next two years. Each of these jurisdictions is both a Stepping Up Innovator County and a MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge site. Read More

The Tulsa County board of commissioners passed a resolution to join the national Stepping Up initiative to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in its jail in 2015. As part of these efforts, county leaders realized that understanding and integrating the perspectives of people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders, especially those who have been involved in the justice system and/or experienced homelessness, would be beneficial to include in planning processes for the county. Through creative partnerships and the inclusion of peers in the planning stages, Tulsa County created programs and services to better meet the needs of its most vulnerable residents. Read More

In 2015, Johnson County joined the national Stepping Up initiative to reduce the prevalence of individuals with mental illness in jails and in 2016, committed to the Data-Driven Justice project to provide alternatives to jail for people who frequently cycle through health, human services and justice systems. As part of these efforts, the county partners with a nonprofit homeless services provider to identify individuals cycling through these various systems and offer low-barrier housing and other solutions to address the needs of county residents experiencing chronic homelessness. Read More

In 2015, the Alamance County board of commissioners passed a resolution to join the national Stepping Up initiative to guide its efforts to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses in jail. As part of their Stepping Up efforts, county leaders established a mission statement, created two part-time coordinator positions and formed a task force, a leadership team and several associated committees to develop a strategic plan that included messaging around what efforts are taking place locally to address connections to services for people with mental illness involved in the justice system. Read More

Once planning is completed and the prioritized strategies are being implemented, tracking progress and ongoing evaluation begins. Planning teams should monitor the completion of short-term, intermediate and long-term goals, as it may take years to demonstrate measurable reductions in jail populations and the prevalence of people with mental illnesses in jail. Showing evidence of more immediate accomplishments, such as the implementation of new procedures, policies and evidence-based practices, contributes to the momentum and commitment necessary to ensure this is a permanent initiative. Tracking data within the four key measures may also provide the justification necessary to secure continuation funding and/or additional implementation funding. Read More

Counties should prioritize policies and processes that will impact one or more of the four key measures: reducing jail bookings, shortening length of stay, increasing connections to treatment and reducing recidivism. County leaders should provide guidance to the planning team on how to make policy recommendations and budget requests that are practical, concrete and aligned with the fiscal realities and budget process of the county. Any budget proposal should identify external funding streams including federal programs such as Medicaid, federal grant opportunities and state block grant dollars as the first source for funding, with any potential county dollars filling final gaps in needed funding. Routine communication with the planning team on its ongoing efforts will help county leaders stay up to speed on the latest developments. Read More

An opportunity exists at every step along the criminal justice continuum to improve responses to a person’s mental health needs. Completing a comprehensive process analysis helps county leaders determine where improvements can be made to better identify needs and share information. Some counties choose to conduct an initial analysis through a system mapping exercise. It is important that an inventory of community-based services and supports also be conducted as part of this process, and data to support this analysis should be included at all possible points. For example, knowing the current number of people who have mental illness who are booked into jail helps county leaders determine the scale of the problem they are working to address and can be used to the compare arrest rates of people who have mental illness to people who do not. Read More

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