Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction Grants - Background
The fiscal year 2014-15 State Budget Act appropriated Recidivism Reduction Funds for Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction (MIOCR) grants to support appropriate prevention, intervention, supervision, services and strategies aimed at reducing recidivism in California’s mentally ill offender population and to improve outcomes for these offenders while continuing to protect public safety. Penal Code Section (PC§) 6045 requires the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) award grants totaling $17.1 million to counties on a competitive basis, with half of the funding to be awarded to projects designed for mentally ill adult offenders and half to be awarded to projects that target mentally ill juvenile offenders.
Penal Code (PC) Section 6045 – PDF
PC further requires grant funds be awarded to implement locally developed, collaborative and multidisciplinary projects that provide a cost-effective continuum of responses designed to reduce jail crowding, provide youthful offenders with alternatives to detention, reduce crime and criminal justice costs as they relate to the mentally ill, and maximize available and/or new local resources for prevention, intervention, detention and aftercare services for adult and juvenile mentally ill offenders. PC§ 6045 also requires the BSCC to provide ongoing technical assistance, monitoring, data collection and evaluation oversight for the local grantees, and to submit an annual Legislative Report beginning October 1, 2015, with a final report due on December 31, 2018.
An Executive Steering Committee (ESC) was formed to oversee the development and release of the MIOCR Grant Program Request for Proposals (RFPs) for both juvenile and adult grant projects. The BSCC Board appointed San Bernardino Chief Probation Officer and BSCC Board Member Michelle Brown and Orange County Sheriff Sandra Hutchens as Co-Chairs of the ESC. Ten additional subject matter experts from an array of disciplines and community partners working with adult and juvenile offenders with mental health issues were named as members and participated on this ESC.
Executive Steering Committee Members – PDF
Executive Steering Committee Process – PDF
At the conclusion of the ESC process, funding recommendations were presented to the BSCC Board for approval. Board Meeting - Wednesday, June 10, 2016
Fiscal Year 2015-16 State Budget Act appropriated an additional $1.7 million in Recidivism Reduction Funds for the funding of additional local assistance grants under PC § 6045. Given previous BSCC Board approval, grant funds were awarded to those county applications ranked next on the funding recommendations, both for juvenile and adult projects. During the contracting process, Orange County declined the juvenile MIOCR award due to unanticipated circumstances; therefore, their award was awarded to subsequently ranked county proposals for juvenile projects.