Policy Goal 2: Convene a state-local collaborative body.
1. Does the state have a standing collaborative body dedicated to criminal justice and behavioral health?
RATIONALE: As state-level leaders increasingly take shared responsibility for improving behavioral health outcomes and reducing recidivism, collaboration is essential to meet those goals. Behavioral health and criminal justice agencies have different missions and different approaches to service delivery. Yet these systems serve a shared population that cycles through the complicated landscape of state and local criminal justice and behavioral health agencies. Without collaborating and coordinating on providing services to this shared population, criminal justice and behavioral health agencies can duplicate efforts, inadvertently work at cross purposes, and fail to address gaps.
Further, tackling complex cross-system problems won’t happen overnight. Standing collaborative structures promote lasting, formalized relationships and ongoing problem-solving that will outlast changing administrations. Collaborative bodies with state and local representation spanning a range of systems, sectors, and branches of government are essential to building a state-local feedback loop that ensures state policymaking is responsive to and reflective of local needs.
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Ways to do it
- Issue an executive order establishing or repurposing an existing collaborative body.
- Convene a collaborative body through a state criminal justice or behavioral health agency, such as through interagency policy agreements or administrative order.
- Pass legislation establishing a collaborative body, such as a state commission.
- Convene a standing advisory body through the judiciary, tasked with looking at the problem through the lens of matters of law, the legal system, or the administration of justice and making recommendations for system improvements.
- States with existing time-limited task forces or commissions may consider formalizing and funding a longer-term, standing collaborative body tasked with addressing a specific intersection, population, or problem.
Things to consider
- Ensure the collaborative body is tasked with making recommendations to the legislature or otherwise directly informing state policymaking, serving as a state-local feedback loop.
- Create a mechanism for meaningful integration of the perspectives of people with lived experience of the criminal justice and/or behavioral health systems.
- Designate funded staff to oversee and coordinate the collaborative body’s activities, including convening meetings, setting agendas, and advancing policy priorities.
- Empower this group to allocate specified funding tied to its policy recommendations and measurable goals.
- Advise on state and local funding priorities and how resources can be leveraged across systems and agencies to support common goals.
- Recommended state-level collaborative body mission and goals:
- Advise the state on evidence-based, promising, and best practices for responding to the behavioral health needs of people who are currently in the criminal justice system, as well as strategies to prevent criminal justice involvement.
- Identify the current and future barriers experienced by people in the criminal justice system who have behavioral health needs, including those related to improving social determinants of health and coordinating complex care needs.
- Identify and address training and technical assistance needs of counties and localities, such as creating funding opportunities, providing technical assistance, creating state guidance, and housing a clearinghouse of available resources.
- Recommended composition: A statutorily defined planning group representing both state and local perspectives, including the following:
- State agency heads, or their representatives, across key criminal justice and health agencies, as well as across all branches of state government
- Representatives from the county level, representing criminal justice and behavioral health
- Members of the public, particularly people with lived experience of the criminal justice system and family members
- Representative(s) from statewide advocacy organization(s)
- Local and state housing/homelessness agencies and service providers
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State Examples
2. Has the state formed a time-limited task force or committee that includes state and local cross-sector partners to examine and implement solutions to high-priority issues at the intersection of criminal justice and behavioral health?
RATIONALE: In some cases, it may be necessary for a state to form an action-oriented task force or committee to target a specific pressing issue or need. These task forces/committees may be connected to a broader initiative and/or mandate (see Policy Goal 1). They may also overlap with the mission and composition of other standing collaborative bodies (see Policy Goal 2, Policy Question 1), but are typically smaller in composition to maximize efficiency, are time-limited, and have a specific purpose. Forming such a task force/committee can
- Make it possible to home in on pressing areas that need the most attention or have even reached crisis levels;
- Allow members to direct their energy and action toward the pressing issue or need at hand, minimizing the likelihood of being pulled in other directions; and
- Help coordinate and leverage responses and resources across sectors and systems.
Ideally, the task force/committee would not only be able to successfully direct solutions to address the issue or need at hand, but its work would also inform broader, statewide strategy (e.g., work conducted by task forces focused on state responses to the opioid epidemic could inform broader goals to improve SUD systems and broader criminal justice-behavioral health efforts).
Ways to do it
- Issue an executive order establishing a task force or committee paired with a statewide commitment.
- Convene a task force or committee through a state criminal justice or behavioral health agency, such as through interagency policy agreements or administrative order.
- Pass legislation establishing a task force or committee.
- Convene a time-limited task force or ad hoc committee through the judiciary tasked with looking at the problem through the lens of matters of law, the legal system, or the administration of justice and making recommendations for system improvements.
Things to consider
- Criminal Justice-Behavioral Health task forces/committees should be
- Time limited;
- Multisector and multisystem, composed of key state and local policymakers and stakeholders;
- Guided by a specific charge and goal (can be tied to a statewide mandate and/or broader initiative); and
- Action oriented, typically focused on developing an action plan that would then be presented to high-level leadership for approval to secure buy-in and resources.