NCJ Number
183549
Date Published
December 1999
Length
54 pages
Annotation
This document presents background information guidelines based on an 18-month collaborative effort and a series of meetings that focused on helping communities identify more appropriate, effective, and humane methods of creating treatment services in the justice system for people with co-occurring mental disorders and drug abuse disorders.
Abstract
Contributors to the report included judges, psychiatrists, attorneys, policymakers, consumers, and researchers, as well as specialists on particular topics. The analysis revealed that the lives of the large numbers of both youth and adults in the justice system with co-occurring mental health and drug disorders involve unproductive cycles of decompensation, disturbance, and arrest that usual interventions cannot change. The justice system is arguably the least effective place for these people to be. However, many communities have devised more effective ways of working with this population. These communities have developed new linkages between mental health, drug abuse, and criminal justice systems that provide appropriate interventions. Many of their innovations reflect an investment in the concept of systems integration. Crucial strategies for the survival of these programs include planning for the future from the first day, collecting as much data as possible, collecting cost data, balancing political and financial stability, and marketing actively. Crucial financial strategies include custom-blending of funding sources, selection of a funding leader, reorganizing existing funds, development of an action plan, and consideration of managed care roles. The Internet has many sources of information about funding opportunities. Appended resource, organization, and funding lists and 10 references