This brief presents opportunities to improve caseflow management and outcomes for criminal court defendants who have behavioral health needs. These strategies are based on a virtual learning collaborative hosted by The Council of State Governments Justice Center, along with the National Center for State Courts, that brought together nine interdisciplinary teams from across the country.

Crime victimization is a vast social harm. Its full cost to individuals and communities is still unknown, but the ultimate financial tally is estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars - up to 6% of the gross domestic product. Criminal justice system policymakers and practitioners could benefit from more complete and precise crime victimization cost data and tools to reset the baseline for proportionate allocation of remedial resources. Better data could drive more equitable crime victim support, including direct victim compensation and other victim services.

While studies indicate court date reminder notification programs increase court appearance rates, additional peer-reviewed research is required before making confident inferences regarding the most effective type and timing of the notification. One study directly evaluating the impact of different notification methods (robocalls vs. live calls) found no differences between notification methods on court appearance rates (Ropac, unpublished).

For jurisdictions implementing behavioral health-criminal justice programs to help minimize justice involvement among people with mental illnesses and substance use disorders, the ongoing costs can present challenges to long-term operation. This brief outlines key strategies and tips to financially sustaining such programs so that they are built for longevity. Photo by Anna Earl on Unsplash.

Women are the fastest-growing incarcerated population in the United States. Despite this drastic increase, correctional institutions often lack awareness and understanding of the victimization that many—if not most—incarcerated women experience before incarceration (Bloom 2015). Many women bring past trauma into prison settings, where they often experience similar violence, abuse, and trauma.

National Institute of Justice to conduct a two-tiered, 33-month, exploratory mixed methods study of the policies, programs, and practices used nationwide to address the needs of incarcerated women with prior trauma and victimization experiences as well as prevent in-custody victimization with the aim of generating actionable information for policymakers, practitioners, and program developers.This report examines that study.

The implementation science checklist series is intended for professionals who direct and oversee programming in the fields of corrections, community corrections, behavioral health, and social service agencies. The collection of eight checklists will help you assess your agency’s evidence-based practice implementation efforts and use a research-based approach to ensure that investments in evidence-based practices yield desired outcomes.

Homelessness is a longstanding problem in California, as it is in much of the U.S. While homelessness has many root causes, including an overall lack of affordable housing and lack of coordination between social service systems, incarceration is a major risk factor. This report highlights 5 areas where people with behavioral health needs leaving California prisons and jails experience the greatest challenges in accessing housing. It also provides 10 complementary recommendations for actions that state, county, and local leaders can take to reduce homelessness among this population.

This technology brief is the fourth in a four-part series that examines artificial intelligence (AI) applications in the criminal justice system. This brief highlights applications currently in use in corrections, including institutional corrections (jails and prisons) and community corrections (probation and parole). This brief introduces frameworks for evaluating AI applications, and summarizes critical risks to consider when deploying AI systems.

On any given day, over 48,000 youth in the United States are confined in facilities away from home as a result of juvenile justice or criminal justice involvement. Most are held in restrictive, correctional-style facilities, and thousands are held without even having had a trial. But even these high figures represent astonishing progress: Since 2000, the number of youth in confinement has fallen by 60%, a trend that shows no sign of slowing down.