Vera’s Substance Use and Mental Health Program (SUMH) conducts applied research to help public officials and community organizations develop empirically driven responses to the substance use and mental health needs of people involved in justice systems. SUMH staff collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data to examine the interaction between public health and justice systems and evaluate existing programs to understand the experiences of those affected by psychiatric disorders or substance use and policies that prolong their involvement in the justice system.
Featured
Creating a Culture of Safety
Sentinel Event Reviews for Suicide and Self-Harm in Correctional Facilities
Since 2011, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), through its Sentinel Events Initiative, has been investigating the feasibility of using a sentinel events approach to review and learn from errors in the criminal justice system such as wrongful convictions, eyewitness misidentifications, or incidents of suicide and self-harm in custody. Recogniz...
Changing Directions
The Intersection of Public Health and Criminal Justice
First-Episode Incarceration
Creating a Recovery-Informed Framework for Integrated Mental Health and Criminal Justice Responses
The number of people diagnosed with serious mental illness in the U.S. criminal justice system has reached unprecedented levels. Increasingly, people recognize that the justice system is no substitute for a well-functioning community mental health system. Although a range of targeted interventions have emerged over the past two decades, existing ap...
Related Work
The Role of Jails in Combatting the Opioid Crisis
Despite a proven evidence base and increasing calls from the President’s Commission on Combatting Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis to incorporate MAT into criminal justice settings, there remains reticence on the part of many jails to adopt MAT. National survey data suggest that utilization of these medications is very low in criminal justice s...
Blog Post
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Leah Pope
Minimizing Harm
Public Health and Justice System Responses to Drug Use and the Opioid Crisis
For the Record Evidence Brief SeriesHow government and communities should respond to drug use is a perennial question that has gained a renewed sense of urgency in the face of the current opioid overdose crisis, and annual deaths from overdose have grown more than ninefold since 1980. In addition to the thousands of lives claimed, thousands more Am...
The Enhanced Pre-Arraignment Screening Unit
Improving Health Services, Medical Triage, and Diversion Opportunities in Manhattan Central Booking
New York City established Pre-Arraignment Medical Screening Units (PASUs) in all boroughs’ central booking facilities, except Staten Island, as a result of a 1993 legal settlement requiring the city to establish a process for screening the health needs of people who are arrested, booked into police custody, and awaiting arraignment. Unfortunately, ...
New White House Report Outlines Recommendations to Stem the Tide of Drug Overdose Deaths
The commission also focuses on law enforcement’s ability to prevent overdoses and save lives by urging the president to provide legislation for states to allow dispensing naloxone via standing orders. Naloxone is a life-saving drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, is non-addictive, and has no effect if a person does not have opioids...
Blog Post
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Vedan Anthony-North
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Leah Pope
ACA Cuts Would Endanger Justice-Involved People with Disabilities, Behavioral Health Needs
In 2010, aiming to provide affordable and comprehensive healthcare to people who otherwise would not have access to essential services, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law. But in an effort to “repeal and replace” the ACA, federal lawmakers are currently considering legislation that, if enacted, will undercut these services, negative...
Blog Post
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Ashley Brompton
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Vedan Anthony-North
With Public Support, States Continue to Embrace Drug Reform—and Save Lives
New reporting from the New York Times yesterday estimates that more than 59,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2016—the largest annual jump ever recorded in U.S. history. With drug overdoses now the leading cause of death for Americans under 50, the consequences of these numbers cannot be underestimated. However, despite new federal sentencing...
Blog Post
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Karina Schroeder
A New Normal
Addressing Opioid Use through the Criminal Justice System
The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths that cuts across economic, racial, and geographic boundaries. In the midst of this devastation, people are struggling to find ways to save the lives of their community members. While the “war on drugs” created tough enforcement policies that resulted in a bloated justice system, ...
A New Normal
Addressing Opioid Use through the Criminal Justice System
The United States is experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths that cuts across economic, racial, and geographic boundaries. In the midst of this devastation, people are struggling to find ways to save the lives of their community members. While the “war on drugs” created tough enforcement policies that resulted in a bloated justice system, ...
#sayhername
The Health Consequences of Mass Imprisonment for (Black) Women
Prof. Hedy Lee discusses how mass incarceration affects the health and wellbeing of the predominantly poor and minority women who routinely deal with the absence of their husbands, fathers, and brothers. Poor and minority women, particularly African American women, face markedly higher rates of chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes, and po...
Recent Wins on Marijuana Signal a Change in Drug Policy Nationally
This election season, many Americans overwhelmingly voted in favor of marijuana reform. California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada approved the legalization of recreational marijuana, while voters in Arkansas, Florida, and North Dakota approved new medical marijuana initiatives. Montana also voted to ease restrictions on its already existing med...
Blog Post
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Kristi DiLallo
Impact Evaluation of the Adolescent Behavioral Learning Experience (ABLE) Program
In 2012, New York City launched the Adolescent Behavioral Learning Experience (ABLE) program, a large-scale initiative serving 16- to 18-year-old youth held at the Rikers Island jail complex. The ABLE program provided Moral Reconation Therapy to young people with the aim of improving individual outcomes and reducing the number of youth who were rea...
Shining a spotlight on mental health and police shootings
The Boston Globe’s infamous Spotlight team recently published an investigation on yet another way people with mental health disorders are underserved and harmed by the criminal justice system: being shot by police. Spotlight uncovered that in Massachusetts, between 2005 and 2015, more than 40 percent of people killed by police were suicidal or show...
Blog Post
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Chelsea Davis
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Leah Pope