Mental Health: Programs and Initiatives

• Fairfax County, Virginia’s Diversion First Program offers alternatives to incarceration for people with mental illness or developmental disabilities who come into contact with the criminal justice system for low level offenses.
• The Council of State Governments' “Stepping Up” Initiative to reduce the number of mentally ill persons in jail.
• The goal of the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) is to improve responses to and outcomes for individuals with mental illnesses or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders who come into contact with the justice system.
• “Loudoun County Using Project Lifesaver sUAS” describes the features and benefits of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office's (Virginia) Project Lifesaver program, which uses a small unmanned aircraft system (sUAS) equipped with an antenna that improves the ability of sUAS to track people with medical conditions such as Alzheimer's or autism, which can lead to disorientation and inability to find one's house when walking alone. 
• Washington State’s Dangerous Mentally Ill Offender (DMIO) program, established by the 1999 Legislature, identifies mentally ill prisoners who pose a threat to public safety and provides them opportunities to receive mental health treatment and other services up to five years after their release from prison.
• For more than two decades, the Psychological Services Section (PSS) of the Miami-Dade Police Department (MDPD) has been proactively addressing the processes of law enforcement suicide and indirect self-destructive behavior through a multi-component program.
• Behavioral Science Services (BSS), Los Angeles Police Department, has been developing a suicide prevention campaign since the spring of 2007 using the public health model.
• The JMHCP is a DOJ BJA grant program that aims to improve responses to and outcomes for individuals with mental illnesses or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders who come into contact with the justice system.

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Last updated: January 2019.