BJA Announces Mental Health Court Learning Sites
The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), a division of the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice, recently chose five mental health court learning sites as part of its Mental Health Courts Program (MHCP):
- Akron (OH) Municipal Mental Health Court
- Bonneville County (ID) Mental Health Court
- Bronx County (NY) Mental Health Court
- Dougherty Superior Court (GA) Mental Health Court
- Washoe County (NV) Mental Health Court
Learning sites will act as a resource for state and local government officials across the country who are considering the development of a mental health court or who are interested in refining the operation of an existing mental health court. Learning sites will also become leaders in the field by working with BJA and the Council of State Governments (CSG), coordinator of the Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project, to continually assess and improve their own program operations.
Learning sites were chosen from approximately 120 mental health courts across the nation through a selection process that began in March 2005. BJA and CSG staff developed a rigorous process for choosing learning sites. The process included surveys, advice from expert consultants, and two-day intensive visits of each finalist site during which a criminal justice expert, a mental health expert, and a CSG staff person observed the courts operations and interviewed key team members.
The five learning sites will host site visits from interested local and state government officials over a two-year period, answer phone and email questions from the field, and work with CSG staff to develop materials for their courts. BJA, in turn, will sponsor a two-day training forum for the learning sites, absorb some of the costs associated with hosting visits, and help facilitate peer-to-peer technical assistance requests.
For more information on the learning sites, please click here or contact Denise Tomasini, 646-383-5715.
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JLI Holds National Meeting, Launches New Web Site
Over 40 judges representing over 19 states recently attended the second annual Judges' Criminal Justice/Mental Health Leadership Initiative (JLI) meeting at the 2006 National GAINS Center conference in Boston, MA. During the meeting, speakers discussed current and upcoming JLI projects and unveiled a new web site for the initiative.
Speakers included:
- A. Kathryn Power, director of the Center for Mental Health Services
- Hon. Evelyn Stratton, co-chair of the JLI and associate justice, Supreme Court of Ohio
- Hon. Steven Leifman, co-chair of the JLI and associate administrative judge, Miami-Dade County Circuit Court
- Henry J. Steadman, president of Policy Research Associates and director of the National GAINS/TAPA Center
- State Rep. Michael Festa (MA), chair of the Criminal Justice Program, Council of State Governments (CSG)
- Hon. Tamara Curry, Presiding Judge, Charleston County Mental Health Court
- Hon. Ginger Lerner-Wren, District Court Judge, Broward County Mental Health Court
- Hon. Katherine Zenoff, Chief Judge, Rockford, Illinois Therapeutic Intervention Program (TIP) Court
Speakers provided an overview of the JLI and discussed the role of judges in system transformation around criminal justice / mental health issues. As co-coordinators of the JLI, representatives of the Council of State Governments Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project and the GAINS / TAPA Center also introduced attendees to the new JLI web site. The web site contains a core set of materials and resources for judges including announcements, media coverage, publications, guides, and other tools.
The JLI was formed in 2004 in order to support and enhance the efforts of judges who have already taken leadership roles on criminal justice / mental health issues and promote leadership among more judges to better respond to the high numbers of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system. The initiative is coordinated by the Consensus Project, the GAINS / TAPA center, and an advisory board of the nations foremost judicial leaders on criminal justice / mental health issues, in collaboration with the Conference of Chief Justices (CCJ), the National Judicial College, and the National Center for State Courts. In addition to convening annual meetings, JLI coordinators also distribute a quarterly newsletter to over 250 judges.
CCJ recently issued a resolution that called attention to the growing numbers of people with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system and committed CCJs involvement in the JLI. To read the complete text of the resolution, please click here.
To learn more about the JLI, please view the initiative's latest newsletter by clicking here or contact Denise Tomasini, 646-383-5715, or Adam Kirkman, 866-518-8272 x260.
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Private Foundations Award Grants to Support JLI Work
The JEHT Foundation and the Conrad Hilton Foundation have awarded grants to support the Judges Criminal Justice / Mental Health Leadership Initiative (JLI), an effort co-coordinated by the Council of State Governments Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project and the GAINS / TAPA Center. This financial assistance, coupled with commitments already made from federal agencies such as the Center for Mental Health Services and the Bureau of Justice Assistance, will enable chief justices in select states to lead statewide efforts to improve the response to people with mental illness involved in the criminal justice system.
Additional information about this project involving state supreme courts (which the Conference of Chief Justices will also be involved in coordinating) will be available on the Consensus Project, GAINS / TAPA Center, and JLI Web Sites.
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BJA Considering Applicants to MIOTCRA Grant Program
The application period for grants authorized by the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA) closed June 2. If you have questions about the grant program, called the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, please click here or contact Robert Hendricks, 202-305-1909.
Fiscal Year 2007 funding for the MIOTCRA grant program is currently being considered in Congress. U.S. Representatives Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and Ted Strickland (D-OH) and U.S. Senator Mike DeWine (R-OH) are leading the effort to support the program. For more information on the funding status of the program, please click here.
For more information on outreach efforts to Congress in support of the program, please contact Hope Glassberg, 646-383-5737.
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Announcements
SAMHSA Awards $7.2 Million for Jail Diversion Grant Programs
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Administrator Charles Curie announced $7.2 million in new grants to divert individuals with mental illness away from the criminal justice system and into community-based mental health and substance abuse treatment services.
Save the Date - September 27 29 - New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services 24th Annual Conference
This years conference represents an unprecedented partnership with Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Vermont. Click the link above for the conference registration form and sponsor and exhibitor information.
Save the date - June 29 - July 2 - NAMI Annual Convention
The NAMI Annual Convention is the annual gathering of some 3,000 mental health activists from all over the U.S. and several foreign countries. Our attendees include: consumers of mental health services, family members, treatment professionals, and health and social policymakers.
CSG, with support from the National Institute of Corrections, releases Collaboration Assessment Tool
The tool, which is organized according to four assessment categoriesknowledge base, system collaboration, service coordination, and resourcesis intended to help criminal justice and mental health organizations assess their existing level of collaboration.
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Criminal Justice and Mental Health in the News
Articles from the Consensus Project homepage--from newspapers around the country--covering issues at the intersection of mental health and criminal justice are posted below. To access a complete list of media coverage, visit the media coverage page.
The News-Sentinel (IN) - DOC moving mentally ill offenders out of supermax units
6/1/06 - "Indiana prison officials facing a federal civil rights lawsuit for locking up mentally ill inmates in virtual isolation have agreed to move most of them into less harsh conditions."
The Associated Press (U.S.) - State settles lawsuit, changes policy about self-harming inmates
5/30/06 - "Settling a lawsuit by a disability-rights group, the state Department of Corrections has agreed take a more therapeutic and less punitive approach to inmates who harm themselves."
Austin American-Statesman (TX) - New office will give free legal help to mentally ill
5/27/06 - "Travis County's new office to help people with mental illnesses navigate the judicial system - the first of its kind in the nation - should be up and running by November, County Judge Sam Biscoe said."
The Capital Times (WI) - Police exploring how to best deal with mentally ill
5/30/06 - "Since a fatal shooting by Madison police of an apparently delusional man ... one local community group has gone on record asking the Madison Police Department to adopt the CIT model, and another is studying the issue."
Concord Monitor (NH) - Editorial: Inside a jail, a tale of both horror and hope
5/30/06 - "The elderly and mentally ill do not belong in jails, which are not set up to care for them. But jails, in New Hampshire and nationally, have become a dumping ground for them because society has failed to pay for more appropriate ways to care for them."
The Journal Gazette (IN) - Jail and the mentally ill
5/23/06 - "The complexity of caring for the mentally ill has prompted officials at the Allen County Jail to intervene promptly when people with mental illnesses arrive at the jail and ensure that they get the care they need."
The East Valley & Scottsdale Tribune (AZ) - Pilot program diverts mentally ill suspects
5/21/06 - "Mentally ill criminal suspects will be diverted to hospitals instead of jail under a $1 million pilot program that Maricopa County supervisors have tentatively approved."
Sun Herald (FL) - Teen becomes youngest person to graduate from mental health court5/21/06 - "The program offers mentally ill misdemeanor offenders...a way out of the criminal justice system and into treatment."
The Sacramento Bee (CA) - Court dispenses gentle justice to mentally ill
5/15/06 - "Sacramento County plans soon to start a pilot mental health court using Santa Clara County's as a model."
Tampa Bay Newspapers (FL) - BCC talks alternatives to incarceration
5/18/06 - "Commissioner Susan Latvala said part of the money budgeted for criminal justice should be used to get people out of the system, to help them get homes and to stabilize their mental illness."
The Wall Street Journal (NY) - No Way Out: Trapped by Rules, The Mentally Ill Languish in Prison
5/3/06 - "Once imprisoned, mentally ill inmates are rarely paroled. Some "max out" their sentence... and are released. With nowhere to go, and with a recidivism rate higher than that of the general prison population, they often end up back where they started."
Monterey Herald (CA) - California will spend more than $600 million to improve conditions for mentally ill inmates
4/28/06 - "The money will be used to add 695 beds at mental health facilities being built at prisons in Folsom, Vacaville and elsewhere."
MetroWest Daily News (MA) - House budget would add more jail diversion programs around state
4/26/06 - "House lawmakers voted yesterday to continue funding Framingham's Jail Diversion Program and create other programs like it around the state."
Democrat and Chronicle(NY) - Advocates push for affordable housing for mentally ill
4/25/06 - "Tens of thousands of state residents with serious psychiatric disabilities don't have access to affordable housing and their quality of life has suffered.... New York spends millions each year on services that don't help this population long term, they said, such as shelters, hospitals, adult homes and prisons."
The Kansas City Star (MO) - Community court takes a win-win approach
4/18/06 - "It is no secret that many people become homeless or fall into petty crime after drinking and doing drugs to self-medicate undiagnosed mental conditions.
Poughkeepsie Journal (NY) - Mentally ill inmates bill gets held up
4/10/06 - " The fate of a bill to prohibit long-term solitary confinement for mentally ill prisoners was uncertain Friday because its Senate sponsor has failed to move it out of a committee he heads."
Idaho Mountain Express and Guide (ID) - Editorial: A start, but Idaho needs expanded mental health programs
4/5/06 - "As a practical matter as well as moral responsibility, mental illness and drug addiction are costly public matters. Most people engulfed in these wretched conditions sooner or later become wards of state programs -- medical treatment, housing, criminal trial and incarceration or probation."
Legislative Gazette (NY) - Former prisoners say special housing units are dangerous
4/3/06 - "Family members of those incarcerated in special housing units and several women formerly confined to those types of cells provided emotional testimony at a press conference held by Mental Health Alternatives to Solitary Confinement last Tuesday."
The News Journal (DE) - Inmates grow old, health costs rise
3/26/2006 - "Another costly health problem in prisons today is mental illness. About 17 percent of U.S. prisoners are mentally ill, with many of them suffering from serious psychiatric illness."
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