The Suffolk County Female Offender Mental Health Collaborative

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 Suffolk will use the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) grant funds ($240,405) to help the Sheriff's Department expand and enhance services available to women offenders with dual diagnoses. The goal of the Suffolk County Female Offender Mental Health Collaborative (SCFOMHC) is to scale up mental health and related services, provided by the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department and local agencies, to women who have been diagnosed as having a mental illness or co-occurring disorder and who have faced, are facing, or could face criminal charges for a misdemeanor or nonviolent offense.

CA/NCF