People with mental illness who have become involved (or are at risk of becoming involved) with the criminal justice system frequently have multiple needs that can be addressed only through the collaborative efforts of several agencies working within the constraints of diverse systems.  The failure of these systems to connect effectively endangers lives, wastes money, and threatens public safety - frustrating crime victims, consumers, family members, and communities in general.

For these reasons, the policy statements and implementation recommendations in this report stress repeatedly the importance of agencies, departments, and organizations working together, across systems.  In fact, many of the policy statements do not address a criminal justice or mental health entity exclusively, but straddle the two systems, requiring the systems to respond jointly.

This report recognizes at the outset that an essential first step toward implementing any of the policy statements is to develop some degree of cooperation among stakeholders in the criminal justice and mental health systems.  (See the section of the report's Introduction entitled "Getting Started," which explores this point in detail.)  But cooperation - such as getting people to the table to define the problem and identify shared goals -  is only a first step toward collaboration.  Stakeholders need to get beyond informal handshake agreements largely dependent on personalities and unlikely to survive staff turnover or changes in leadership.  To ensure the lasting, systemic change that this report contemplates, criminal justice and mental health policymakers will need to improve upon initial cooperative efforts, begin to collaborate, and, ultimately, enter into partnerships. [1]

The impetus for collaboration can come from a variety of sources. [2]  Sometimes, it is a tragedy involving an individual with mental illness that forces representatives of the criminal justice and mental health systems to recognize the need for working together more closely.  This was the case in Seminole County, Florida, where a tragic shooting of a deputy by an individual with mental illness sparked cooperation among various stakeholders, which in turn prompted the creation of a task force designed to improve system coordination. 

Legislatures can also be extremely powerful in encouraging improved collaboration to address the issue of individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice system.  In 1998, the California Legislature established the Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction Grant (MIOCRG) Program.  The program provided $50.6 million in grant monies for demonstration projects in 15 different counties that, collectively, target approximately 12,500 offenders with mental illness.[3]  To be eligible for a demonstration grant, the legislation requires counties to establish a Strategy Committee comprising criminal justice and mental health stakeholders.

At the local level, the success of cross-system collaboration often depends on strong leadership from high-ranking officials in both the criminal justice and mental health systems.   These individuals can bring participants to the table, deal with conflicts that arise, and generally ensure that the partnership can overcome the inherent difficulties attendant to cross-system collaboration.  One example of numerous such collaborative efforts is the Mental Health Coordinating Council in Travis County, Texas.  The Coordinating Council is headed by the probate judge and includes representatives from the local mental health agency, emergency services, the sheriff's office, the police department, the county attorney's office, social workers, consumer advocacy groups, the state hospital and others.  The council meets once monthly to address issues of common concern to the participants.  The probate judge develops meeting agendas, facilitates the meetings, mediates conflicts, and helps clarify legal issues. [4]

This report is replete with numerous, inspiring cases of stakeholders collaborating closely, across systems, and forming successful partnerships.  In these cases, the stakeholders have cleared initial barriers to cooperation and coalition building, which are addressed in the introduction to this report.  Furthermore, they have addressed three key issues, reviewed in this section, to ensure the long-term viability of the collaboration:  obtaining and managing the resources to sustain the initiative; establishing guidelines for information sharing; and institutionalizing the partnership.