Just 33% of facilities queried said they deploy these tools to divert people with substance use and mental health issues to non-jail settings
A survey of administrators at U.S. jails shows that only about one-third of facilities use information from behavioral health screening and assessment tools to divert people from jail. Most facilities do conduct screenings and assessments, but few use them for diversion purposes. That represents a significant missed opportunity to connect people to the care they may need.
The Pew Charitable Trusts invited more than 1,400 U.S. jail administrators through their professional association, the American Jail Association, to take the survey that was fielded from May 2023 to February 2024. (See methodology for details.) One hundred jail administrators responded, a relatively small sample but enough to provide some insights into what’s happening in the nation’s jails.
Jail administrators were asked about facility practices related to mental health and substance use screenings and assessments. These screenings are brief, routine procedures that can include short interviews or self-reporting to identify if an individual has urgent health concerns when entering a facility. Assessments, meanwhile, are more in-depth evaluations that help determine treatment and care of individuals with health issues, including diversion from jail to treatment, and care while in jail or after release.
Overall, jails reported high usage rates for these tools: 88% reported screening everyone for mental health needs and 80% conducted assessments based on information gained through screenings or prior records. Additionally, 86% of responding jails screened everyone entering their doors for substance use issues and roughly 65% performed assessments based on those screening results.
But few facilities used that behavioral health information to help move people out of jail and into appropriate care settings: just 33% used screenings and assessments to divert people with mental health concerns and only 33% used those tools to divert people with substance use issues.
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The responses by administrators to this survey are complete BS! They no more take into account mental health issues than they do anything else. They look at themselves as a self storage for human flesh. They lock a person up and forget about them. The U.S. incarceration system has got to be one of the worst in the industrialized world. Neglect and abuse are common. The public could care less because we as a society have lost our way.
Not until the “tough on crime culture” is permanently eradicated from the CJS (crim. justice system) will we ever see effective, consistent and well-managed rehabilitation programs within prisons.
The “tough on crime culture” has viewed rehabilitation (one of the four stated goals of many if not all sentencing schemes) much as a disfavored step-child relegated to the basement and fed scraps. And only when forced to institute rehabilitative programs will they act. Few of those in the power structure of the CJS believe in the value of such programs, even though they have been proven to be cost effective as recidivism is reduced. Let’s also not forget that these programs reduce monies which could be made available for pensions, bonuses, salaries, etc.
Evolving science has led to the development of effective rehabilitation programs which serves to reduce the recidivism rates (especially amongst drug violators). However, the power structure only seems to care about recidivism rates when they are called to answer in televised legislative hearings where they are sworn in and forced to answer. Even so, they typically give nothing more than lip-service, strive to side-step and/or divert from the issue.
In our community, the recidivism rates are far lower as there is mandated counselling once we have left prison. Certainly, there are varying degrees of competency in such programs, and therefore,varying degrees of effectiveness.
Hopefully, in time, and with consistent dialogue and voting in effective representatives, will we see any positive change.