As nearly 11 million people are admitted to county and other local jails every year, counties are uniquely positioned to lead efforts to advance safety and justice through reducing the misuse and overuse of jails. Five new issue briefs from NACo address key areas of local criminal justice systems that most affect counties and offer strategies counties can employ to address these issues, make their justice systems work more effectively and efficiently, and ultimately lead to safer and healthier communities. Click below to access all five resources.

Opioid Treatment for Justice-Involved Individuals

County Roles and Opportunities in Opioid Treatment for Justice-Involved Individuals outlines some of the challenges counties face when trying to treat opioid misuse and addiction in justice-involved individuals and highlights key strategies that communities have used to address this issue, including community-based treatment, treatment within the justice system, reentry planning and special considerations for rural counties.

Reducing Mental Illness in Jails

County Roles and Opportunities in Reducing Mental Illness in Jails outlines some of the challenges counties face when trying to reduce the number of people with mental illnesses entering jails and highlights key strategies that communities have used to address this issue, such as strong leadership and collaboration, efficient use of resources and effective data collection and sharing.

Collaboration Across Systems and Programs

County Roles and Opportunities in Advancing Safety and Justice Challenge through Collaboration explores some of the ways counties can develop and enhance collaboration within the justice system and between community-based resource and service providers in local efforts to enhance public safety and improve individual and community outcomes. Regardless of the reasons for collaboration, it inherently requires individuals and their departments to meet and work together to identify and solve problems. Collaboration enables counties to more quickly create a process needed to achieve change.

Pretrial Justice

County Roles and Opportunities in Pretrial Justice outlines some of the many proven policies and processes counties can implement to reduce pretrial jail populations, make more effective use of resources and maintain, or even improve, public safety.

Reentry Planning

County Roles and Opportunities in Reentry Planning outlines a few of the many strategies counties can employ to assist individuals returning to their communities, including improving access to stable and affordable housing, providing physical and behavioral health treatment, offering training and workforce development and increasing transportation options.

These issue briefs were developed with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as part of the Safety and Justice Challenge, which seeks to reduce overincarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails.