So many people and organizations made the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project possible. Although it is not feasible to recognize each of these contributions individually, the Council of State Governments (CSG) staff would like to highlight the special roles of several people involved in this two-year initiative.

First, CSG staff would like to thank the co-chairs of the project, Senator Robert Thompson of Pennsylvania and Representative Michael Lawlor of Connecticut.  They initiated this effort, and they provided the leadership to realize a vision of bipartisan consensus around issues that initially seemed to many as hopelessly complex and controversial.  Perhaps most importantly, through changes to policy in their respective states, they demonstrated how elected officials can use the report to effect real, systemic change.

The project partners that made up the Steering Committee have been the core strength of the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project.  CSG staff are immensely grateful to the staff of these organizations:  the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF); Association of State Corrections Administrators (ASCA); the Pretrial Services Resource Center (PSRC); the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD); the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law; and the Center for Behavioral Health, Justice, and Public Policy.

At PERF, Martha Plotkin and Melissa Reuland's experience with similar projects and reports always provided the group with a bedrock of strategic expertise.  Under Bob Glover's stalwart leadership at NASMHPD, Bill Emmet incorporated the diverse and passionate perspectives of the mental health community into the report so deftly that many in the project almost forgot what an impossible assignment he had been handed.  Fred Osher patiently educated the group about mental illness, the complexities of the mental health system, and the state of mental health research, and everyone always enjoyed learning from him. Alan Henry and John Clark of PSRC accomplished a feat essential to the credibility of the project, maintaining the confidence of perennial adversaries - prosecutors and defense attorneys - in the project's process and the final report.  Chris Koyanagi consistently (but always constructively) challenged the group to make the report one that respected people with mental illness.  And George Vose and John Blackmore of ASCA made sure the Steering Committee never lost sight of the realities that confront corrections and community corrections practitioners - a primary target audience for the report. 

CSG and the project partners are enormously indebted to the members of the law enforcement, courts, corrections, and mental health advisory boards, who are listed earlier in this report.  They each volunteered, over the course of just 18 months, hundreds of hours from their extremely busy schedules.  Reviewing draft after draft of the report and crisscrossing the country for meetings, they contributed expertise, ideas, and suggestions about how to improve the response to people with mental illness who come into contact with the criminal justice system. Although not individually endorsed, the recommendations and policy statements are based on their visions for better criminal justice and mental health systems.

No one person in the country knows more about mental illness, co-occurring substance abuse disorders, and the criminal justice system than Hank Steadman of the GAINS Center.  His careful review of early drafts of this report, and his thoughtful comments about how to make it better, improved the Consensus Project report dramatically.

An initiative of the scope and complexity of the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project never gets past the concept phase without considerable funding support.  Indeed, a large, diverse group of federal and private grantmakers made this project possible.  Officials from the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice (specifically the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Corrections Program Office, and the Office of Victims of Crime) and the Center for Mental Health Services in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services demonstrated how the federal government can effectively partner with policymakers at the state and local levels.  Program officers from nearly a half-dozen private foundations - van Ameringen Foundation, the Melville Charitable Trust, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Open Society Institute - took a significant risk at the early stage of this project; their investments and votes of confidence made it possible for federal agencies to provide the resources to complete the initiative.  CSG staff also thank Pfizer, Inc. and Eli Lilly, Inc. for their support of the Consensus Project. 

CSG staff are grateful to Dan Sprague, the Executive Director of CSG, John Mountjoy, CSG's Chief Policy Analyst, and the Justice and Public Safety Task Force, for allowing and supporting a regional office to coordinate a national initiative. 

CSG staff would also like to give special thanks to Alan Sokolow, the director of the Eastern Office of CSG.  From the beginning - when it was not at all apparent that federal agencies and private foundations would provide funding support to offset many (but far from all) of the expenses that the project incurred - he put the resources of the office behind the initiative.  And in the immediate aftermath of the destruction of CSG's office in the World Trade Center, Alan made temporary office space and other resources available to ensure that the project would continue without any disruption.  That commitment to the project, and the faith he showed in his staff, was extraordinary and cannot be overstated.

Finally, CSG staff and the project partners thank the many criminal justice and mental health professionals who work daily to provide a better quality of life to people in their communities. It is for them that this report has been written. Their commitment to providing the best possible services to people with mental illness will save us from the enormous costs - in human lives and community resources - we all assume when their needs are not met.