A new diversion program in Santa Barbara County aims to keep people suffering from mental health issues and substance abuse disorders out of jail and instead move them into treatment programs.
During its Feb. 4 meeting, the county Board of Supervisors accepted nearly $6 million in grant funding from the Board of State and Community Corrections to run this program over the next three years.
According to a staff report from the Feb. 4 meeting, this funding will allow the county to create and implement the Crisis Intervention, Diversion, and Support Program, which will operate through the county Public Defender’s Office, Behavioral Wellness Department, Sheriff’s Office, District Attorney’s Office, and in conjunction with various community-based organizations.
During the Board of Supervisors meeting, county Public Defender Tracy Macuga said that through this program, the county would make progress on its stated goals of keeping people with mental health issues and substance abuse problems out of jail.
“We’ve been talking about diversion since the day I stepped into this position [in October 2016], and this is the first time that we really will have meaningful diversion that will have an impact on the community in a very positive way,” Macuga said.
These diversion efforts include supporting the county’s crisis intervention team, which consists of a sheriff’s deputy and a mental health professional who respond to potential arrests where the suspect exhibits signs of a mental health illness. This team conducts a screening and determines whether or not the person is eligible for a diversion program. The grant program also includes funding for housing services and behavioral health treatment programs.
According to the Board of State and Community Corrections, the grant funding is available as a result of voters approving Proposition 47 in November 2014. This statewide proposition reclassified certain low-level, non-violent felonies as misdemeanors for some individuals with the goal of lower state incarceration rates.
The state Legislative Analyst’s Office estimated that California would save about $150 million annually because of this decrease in its prison population, according to the county staff report from the Feb. 4 meeting. These savings are used to fund this grant program, among other services.
The Board of State and Community Corrections announced the 23 applicants that would receive this roughly $96 million in grant funding in June 2019. This is the second round of funding for this grant program, following the state’s allocation of $103 million to local jurisdictions in 2017.
During the Feb. 4 meeting, Assistant County Executive Officer Barney Melekian told the Board of Supervisors that the funding through this Proposition 47 grant program is just one of three grants the county is trying to secure to fund its diversion efforts.
“All three of them together really tie into an overall strategic effort to roadmap people out of the criminal justice system and into either substance abuse or mental health treatment that’s desperately needed and will hopefully have the practical impact of lowering our jail population,” Melekian said.
This article appears in Feb 6-13, 2020.