Federal Legislation
Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2003
The Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act (MIOTCRA), passed unanimously by the U.S. House and Senate and signed into law by President Bush in 2004, promotes public safety and community health by facilitating collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice, mental health treatment, and substance abuse systems in diverting individuals with mental illness from the criminal and juvenile justice systems and in treating such individuals within those systems. MIOTCRA authorized the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration grant program (JMHCP), which received $5 million (out of a possible $50 million authorized) in both FY 2006 and FY 2007 and $6.5 million in FY 2008. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), a division of the Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice, administers the program. The program was reauthorized in 2008 by the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Reauthorization and Improvement Act, S.2304.For more information, visit the Justice Center's Criminal Justice / Mental Health Consensus Project website.
Our Publications
The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center announced today the release of the toolkit, Planning and Assessing a Law Enforcement Reentry Strategy. With support by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), the kit has been designed as a guide and self-assessment tool for policing personnel and their partners to help reduce repeat crimes and facilitate successful reintegration by the more than 700,000 individuals who return to our communities from prisons each year and the more than 9 million from jails.