Grafton County Mental Health Court

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 county of Grafton will use the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) grant funds ($227,122) to establish a misdemeanor-level, mental health court in their District Court. The mental health court will be a collaboration between the community mental health programs, the treatment programs, and the criminal justice system. The goal will be to reduce recidivism of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system and to facilitate the effective treatment of Grafton County offenders.

CA/NCF