Ohio SCIP Application

To address the violence that continues to plague many of our cities, and in direct response to the Byrne SCIP solicitation, the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services (OCJS) in the Ohio Department of Public Safety (DPS) convened a Crisis Intervention Advisory Board (CIAB) to inform and guide the state’s violence reduction programs and initiatives. Based on the identified priority areas, Ohio’s Byrne SCIP funding allocation will be used to support the following programs, which were approved by the CIAB on December 2, 2022.

Specialized court-based programs: Court technology which will provide information-sharing solutions that allow local courts to report information on offenses that disqualify a person from purchasing a firearm to the Bureau of Criminal Identification (BCI), which houses the state’s computerized criminal history database. Specialized Dockets: funding will be used to support mental health courts, veteran’s courts, domestic violence courts, and/or juvenile mental health treatment courts. Behavioral health deflection for those at risk to themselves or others programs including: Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), which is one of the oldest and most widely researched evidence-based practices in behavioral healthcare for people with severe mental illness. Forensic ACT (FACT) - in addition to addressing criminogenic risks and needs, FACT programs typically incorporate a criminal justice partner and a peer specialist with lived criminal justice experience on the treatment team. Mobile crisis response programs - community-based approaches that use teams of social workers, mental health specialists, and/or medical staff to respond to people in behavioral crisis and who may be at risk to themselves or others. Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) and Sequential Intercept Mapping (SIM) workshops with the goal of developing effective and comprehensive systems of care that bridge criminal justice and mental health services and minimize criminal justice involvement for persons with mental illness.