Roll Over to Select an Audience

The high prevalence of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system affects dozens of agencies, each with its own priorities, practices, and protocols. Even the most committed and knowledgeable advocates will quickly be overwhelmed if they try to tackle the entire problem at once. Instead, advocates should focus on a particular aspect of the criminal justice and mental health systems, gradually engaging all community stakeholders and investing them in the process. For example, an advocate may initially focus on improving police responses to people with mental illness, enhancing judges' training on mental health issues, or encouraging mental health providers to better engage people leaving prison and jail.

Regardless of where they choose to focus, advocates must take the time to understand their prospective partners in the criminal justice and mental health systems. This includes understanding their perspectives on the problem, identifying reasons why it is in their interest to address the problem, and proposing specific initiatives that will appeal to them. This section of the handbook helps advocates identify and work with various audiences in the criminal justice, juvenile justice, or mental health systems.

Along with appreciating the specific interests of different agencies, advocates should remember the importance of collaboration, both between the justice and mental health systems and across different criminal justice agencies. As the Consensus Project Report makes clear, collaboration within and across systems is the single greatest common denominator in communities that have taken the lead in addressing this problem. Without collaboration, any initiative, regardless of which agency takes the lead, is destined to fail.