The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) FY19 Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) supports cross-system collaboration to improve responses and outcomes for individuals with mental illnesses (MI) or co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse (CMISA) who come into contact with the justice system. This program supports officer and public safety and violence reduction through social service and other partnerships that will enhance and increase law enforcement responses to people with MI and CMISA.

The recipient will develop a plan to improve responses and officer and civilian safety during calls for service involving people with MI and CMISA. Planning activities may include establishing an interagency workgroup; designating a law enforcement agency project coordinator to review data on performance and adherence to policies and procedures, oversee day-to-day operations, and coordinate partner outreach; updating existing protocols and officer mental health training to manage and defuse encounters with people exhibiting MI and CMISA; assessing existing behavioral care resources to identify gaps in services and prioritize resources for the strategy; assessing the ability to track mental health-related calls for service and dispositions and developing additional capacity to analyze and track; designing data-integration/data-matching systems between law enforcement and community service providers; engaging in peer-to-peer learning; and/or developing a process for reviewing and improving performance data to promote additional capacity and long-term sustainability