Mental Health Courts in Illinois: Success, Rejection, and Reform

A Rotary club in Topeka, Kansas, has transformed reentry support for incarcerated women at the Shawnee County Jail through Intersection to Care, a program that pairs immediate-release support with mentorship, skills classes, and subsidized housing. The program, led by women with lived experience of incarceration, meets women at the jail exit to prevent trafficking, connects them to recovery housing through Oxford House of Kansas, and offers technology, health, art, and movement classes inside the facility. Since launching in 2022, the initiative has assisted more than 1,000 women.

In response to the dangerous gap in health services that incarcerated people face upon release, California and 26 other states have implemented Medicaid waivers allowing coverage to begin up to 90 days before release and continue for up to a year afterward. The program connects inmates with case managers, medications, housing assistance, and mental health care before they walk out the door. California's program has already enrolled more than 50,000 incarcerated people in prerelease services since January 2023.

For the People identifies eligible cases for California’s resentencing law, conducts outreach to incarcerated women, reviews applications, and makes referrals to prosecutor resentencing units in participating counties in an effort to address the gender gap in resentencing cases. The program has helped resentence about 1,000 people, including three women, and is being implemented in five other states.

Project Rebound at the Pelican Bay State Prison is a partnership with California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt that provides associate and bachelor’s degree education to incarcerated individuals. Research shows access to higher education in prison lowers recidivism rates and increases the likelihood the person will find a job post-incarceration. Currently, about 14,000 incarcerated individuals in the state are taking classes toward a college degree, or about 15% of the prison population.

The University of Wyoming’s Pathways from Prison program uses federal Pell Grant money and private donations to fund college education for inmates. The program offers four-year degrees and aims to provide them with the skills, tools and knowledge to reenter society in a positive way. Studies show educational programs decrease recidivism rates by 14.8%, and those participating in the program say their self-worth and sense of hope have significantly increased.

Women in Recovery is a diversion program for women who would otherwise face prison time for drug-related offenses. The comprehensive program lasts 18 months and helps participants restore their mental health, reunite with their children, develop skills that help them get jobs, secure housing and reenter the community. Women in Recovery helps reduce recidivism rates and 70% of women who start the program complete it and graduate.

With the new statewide Medicaid expansion, the Department of Adult Correction is working to ensure fewer people reenter society after incarceration and enter a healthcare coverage gap by helping people apply for Medicaid before release. With the Medicaid expansion, 80% of the 15,000 people released from prison each year are now eligible for coverage, and prison staff submit about 100 Medicaid applications each week.

Connecticut is attempting to reduce prison recidivism by changing parole practices. Changes to the system are allowing parole officers to foster relationships with parolees and counsel them as people, not as cases.

Chesterfield County, Virginia implemented a multi-faceted response to the opioid crisis, including a jail-based recovery program, Helping Addicts Recover Progressively (HARP), that brings people in recovery to the local jail to talk about addiction and treatment resources. Combined with other efforts, overdose deaths have dropped by half in a single year, and around 4,000 people have participated in HARP.

Research has found that providing medications for opioid use disorder can help prevent overdoses after release from prison. The state’s Department of Adult Correction recently launched a pilot program to test this theory. 229 of the 287 participants received treatment, several of whom said the access to the medications helped save their lives.