Knoxville's Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program

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.

The city of Knoxville will use funding in the amount of $250,000 for the JMHCP Category 2: Planning and Implementation grant program. The Knoxville Police Department (KPD) will establish a Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program in partnership with the Helen Ross McNabb Center (HRMC) to address the incarceration of women with mental illness and co-occurring disorders.

This project plans to reduce the number of system involved women within the Knox County Jail utilizing a two-prong approach to address the unique challenges for this population. This project will create an avenue to divert women identified with mental illness or co-occurring disorders from incarceration, and to intervene, advocate, and provide linkage for women post-incarceration. The JMHC funds will provide three key components: 1) technical assistance, 2) increase direct service staffing, and 3) enhance law enforcement and service provider cross training.

CA/NCF