Promoting Behavioral Health Within Communities to Reduce Criminal Justice Involvement

Individuals with mental health and substance use disorders are overrepresented in a criminal justice system that is ill-equipped to treat them and they often return to communities that lack adequate resources and capacity to respond to their behavioral health needs. Smart Decarceration Initiative engages with community partners in developing a social capacity framework to promote behavioral health for people involved in the criminal justice system. Social capacity is a community’s ability to work together to build and sustain their own solutions, rather than give responsibility primarily to an external set of actors. A social capacity framework will guide researchers and practitioners in the design and implementation of community-based interventions that improve behavioral health outcomes and reduce criminal justice involvement.

Funding Partner: Clinical & Translational Science Awards SPIRiT

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