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Westchester’s Behavioral Health Diversion Continuum: A Roadmap Through the Justice System
The intersection of the criminal justice and behavioral health systems is neither a point nor a straight line. Rather, the overlap of these systems is a continuum; one in which the inflection points of systemic cross-contact can be identified and potentially addressed. The clearest tool for...
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The NYSPA Report – Treatment Before Arrest: Why Diversion Begins With Engagement
When psychiatrists discuss behavioral health diversion, we usually mean redirecting a person away from arrest, jail, or prosecution and toward treatment. Mental health courts, crisis-response programs, and alternatives to incarceration are essential; yet if diversion begins only after...
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The Missing Intercept: From Lived Experience to Lived Expertise – The Case for Justice Peers
A behavioral health crisis can become a 911 call, which can then become police contact. Police contact can become arrest or, in some cases, death. Arrest can become detention, which interrupts medication, housing, employment, treatment, family connection, social supports, and recovery. When all is...
