DuPage County Mental Illness Court Alternative Program (MICAP) Expansion Project

The Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) is funded through the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-414), which was reauthorized in 2008 (Public Law 110-416). The primary purpose of JMHCP is 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 mental health and other treatment services for those individuals with mental illness or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Jurisdictions are eligible to apply for planning, planning and implementation, or expansion funding through JMHCP.

DuPage County will use funds to improve and expand its existing court diversion program for the benefit of non-violent offenders.
An assessment of current Mental Illness Court Alternative Program (MICAP) services and the needs of offenders accepted into the
program points to three key service gaps that the proposed project will address:
1) targeted treatments to enhance integrated services for individuals with co-occurring
disorders by expanding outpatient and residential mental health/ substance abuse services; 2) treatment support measures that improve therapy outcomes including enhanced diagnostic services targeting female offenders in order to better determine multi-axial diagnoses and treatments such as cognitive behavior therapy, dialectical behavior therapy and trauma therapy; and 3) essential non-treatment support services that facilitate recovery including alcohol testing, job training and monitoring, and transportation assistance. The overall goal of this expansion project is to reduce recidivism and increase graduation rates by targeting service gaps and addressing the individual needs of 110 non-violent MICAP participants over the course of two years. Funding for the proposed project will enable DuPage County to establish additional supports and services that will strengthen MICAP and lead to higher success rates. The applicant posits that more justice-involved individuals with mental illness will have the chance to recover and live healthier, more productive lives, which could lead to increased public safety in DuPage County on the whole.

CA/NCF