About

Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) supports law enforcement, courts, corrections, treatment, victim services, technology, and prevention initiatives that strengthen the nation’s criminal justice system. BJA provides leadership, services, and funding to America’s communities by emphasizing local control, building relationships in the field, providing training and technical assistance in support of efforts to prevent crime, drug abuse, and violence at the national, state, and local levels, developing collaborations and partnerships, promoting capacity building through planning, streamlining the administration of grants, and other initiatives.

The BJA Policy Office provides national leadership in criminal justice policy, training, and technical assistance to further the administration of justice. It also acts as a liaison to national organizations that partner with BJA to set policy and help disseminate information on best and promising practices. The Policy Office consists of the Justice Information Sharing team, the Justice Systems team, the Law Enforcement & Adjudication team, and the Strategic Initiatives team.

Council of State Governments (CSG)

The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) would like to acknowledge and thank the Council of State Governments (CSG), a nonprofit, nonpartisan, membership association, Justice Center staff for their participation, contribution to the content of this site, and for contributing to the successful launch of the Police Mental Health Collaboration Toolkit. CSG’s Justice Center division http://csgjusticecenter.org works to provide technical assistance and seeks to improve criminal justice and mental health responses to people with mental health disorders that are engaged with the CJ system. Together BJA and the CSG Justice Center strive to advance the use of evidence-based practices and policies to create a network of practitioners, researchers, and policymakers invested in improved CJ responses to people with mental health disorders.

Focused Tools for Law Enforcement

Many communities struggle with the PMHC program design process. Communities are unsure how to design and develop a PMHC program that meets their distinct needs and challenges. One way to increase knowledge of PMHCs, is to review programs that other jurisdictions have developed and tailor those programs to your specific community needs.

Law Enforcement agencies interested in expanding their knowledge base, starting, or enhancing a PMHC, can contact The U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) or BJA’s Training and Technical Assistance (TTA) Provider. BJA supports these urban and rural police departments to act as host-sites to visiting law enforcement agencies and their mental health partners.

Located across the country, these learning sites represent a diverse cross-section of perspectives and program examples and are dedicated to helping other jurisdictions improve their responses to people with mental illnesses.

Opportunities

The fourteen learning sites host site visits from interested colleagues and other local and state government officials, answer questions from the field, and work with BJA’s TTA provider to develop materials for practitioners and their community partners.

TTA is provided to law enforcement agencies and their community partners in an effort to assist with the development or implementation of PMHC strategies. Supplemental funds can be made available to agencies that are interested in visiting the learning sites. This is a focused approach intended to provide your agency with access to outstanding peer resources for police-mental health collaboration programs.