Maine Diversion and Reentry Project

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP), seeks to increase public safety through innovative cross-system collaboration for individuals with mental illness who come into contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems. This program is funded through the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (MIOTCRA) (Public Law 108-414). The program is designed to increase public safety by facilitating collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice, and mental health and substance abuse treatment systems to increase access to services for offenders with mental illness. Activities under this initiative encourage early intervention for 'system-involved' individuals with mental illness; provides new and existing mental health courts with various treatment options; maximizes diversion opportunities for nonviolent offenders with mental illness and co-occurring disorders; promotes training for justice and treatment professionals on criminal justice processes and mental health and substance abuse issues; and facilitates communication, collaboration, and the delivery of support services among justice professionals, treatment and related service providers, and governmental partners.

The State of Maine will use their 2007 JMHCP funds to enhance public safety and diversion/re-entry efforts. This will be done by strengthening collaborations between state and local criminal justice and treatment systems, and by planning, adapting, and implementing evidence-based programs to address the needs of non-violent offenders with mental health/substance abuse issues in Maine's criminal justice system. The funds from this grant will be used for: hiring of project staff, training, data base development and evaluation, start-up for the development of a common data base and evaluation tool, and the expansion of services for inmates in Maine county jails.

CA/NCF