The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law has released a report describing the essential community mental health services that must be expanded to divert people with significant psychiatric disabilities from the criminal justice system: Diversion to What? Evidence-Based Mental Health Services That Prevent Needless Incarceration.

Diversion to What? is designed to provide guidance to stakeholders engaged in efforts to reduce incarceration of people with psychiatric disabilities, laying out the types of services that should be the focus of such efforts. The report describes what those services do and how they are structured, and identifies the evidence demonstrating their success in reducing incarceration. The report is also available to download on the Bazelon Center’s website.

The Bazelon Center gratefully acknowledges the essential support for this report provided by the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge and the Ford Foundation.

If you have any questions or feedback, please contact RCPA Children’s and Criminal Justice Director Jim Sharp.