Wichita/Sedgwick County Justice Collaborative: Alternative Treatments and Interventions for Consumers (ATIC)

The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) seeks to increase public safety through an innovative, cross-system collaborative response for individuals with mental illness who come in contact with the criminal or juvenile justice systems. This program is funded through the Public Law 110-161 (Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2008) and is authorized through Public Law 108-414 (Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act, 2004). 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 will encourage early intervention for 'system-involved' individuals with mental illness; provide new and existing mental health courts with various treatment options; maximize diversion opportunities for non-violent offenders with mental illness and co-occurring disorders; promote training for justice and treatment professionals on criminal justice processes and mental health and substance abuse issues; and facilitate communication, collaboration, and the delivery of support services among justice professionals, treatment and related service providers, and governmental partners.

The City of Wichita Municipal Court will use the Fiscal Year (FY) 2008 Justice and Mental Health Courts planning and implementation grant funds to execute the Wichita/Sedgwick County Justice Collaborative: Alternative Treatments and Interventions for Consumers (ATIC). The purpose of ATIC is to identify persons with mental illness pre- and post-booking that will benefit from alternatives to typical incarceration or court sanctions. ATIC will utilize two programs to work with mental illness individuals in the criminal justice system: a pre-booking alternative program to include Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training and the Mental Health Court (MHC). Through CIT training, law enforcement officers will be cross-trained in mental health services, crisis de-escalation techniques, and to make appropriate referrals for services at COMCARE or other agencies. It is anticipated that 5% of all law enforcement officers will be trained during the 36-month grant period. MHC will afford consumers in the system pre- and post-adjudication alternatives. MHC will have the capacity to serve 100 individuals at any given time.

The goals of ATIC are to: reduce recidivism of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system; increase the number of criminal justice personnel trained in or using law enforcement-based diversion strategies (through CIT training); increase the number of court-based diversion programs and alternative jail diversion strategies (through MHC); and, increase the quantity and quality of mental health and other services available to mentally ill offenders.

CA/NCF