The Lubbock County Justice and Mental Health Collaborative builds an infrastructure of criminal justice and mental health agencies for the West Texas region.
The Texas Criminal Justice System, without adequate equipment or personnel, increasingly provides care for individuals with Serious Mental Illness (SMI). In Texas, 43% of inmates receive mental health treatment, and nearly 50% of the inmates in the Lubbock County Detention Center have a history of mental illness. Lubbock County serves as the regional hub for inmate detention in rural West Texas, serving a 250-mile radius. To address resource gaps in SMI care, Lubbock County Detention Center, Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, and Starcare began collaborating in 2016. The partnership has expanded to 20 public and non-profit agencies (LCDC, Starcare, Sunrise Canyon, City of Lubbock Police Department, Lubbock Private Defenders Office, District Attorney's Office, Office of Court Administration, MH Court Docket, Adult Probation Office, Court Residential Treatment Center, Probation, Open Door, VetStar, UMC Hospital, UMC EMS, NAMI, Covenant BHS, CCS). In 2017, the Justice and Mental Health Collaborative (JMHC) was formalized with the award of a "Category 1: Collaborative Count Approaches to Reducing the Prevalence of Individuals with Serious Mental Illness in Jails" grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.
JMHC's goals are to build a collaborative infrastructure of CJ and MH agencies for
the West Texas region, develop information sharing and data analysis capacity for
MH data across agencies, and reduce individuals with SMI in the CJ system. The specific
research objectives are to determine best practices for establishing community-university
MH partnerships; develop valid risk prediction and diversion success analytics; determine
intervention points for individuals with MH issues before CJ involvement; and develop
a sustainability framework for the JMHC. The collaboration has already assisted the
Lubbock County Detention Center to more effectively evaluate their programs and services
and better document successes. With better evaluation, communities are better able
to secure funding for interventions and other future programs. It has been instrumental
in mobilizing community resources for initiating and changing policies, programs,
and practices surrounding serious mental illness in our local criminal justice system.
Project Leaders:
Lisa Gittner, Associate Professor, Department of Political Sciences, TTU College of Arts and Sciences
Nathaniel Wright, Assistant Professor, Department of Political Sciences, TTU College of Arts and Sciences
Jeff Dennis, Assistant Professor, Public Health, TTU Health Sciences Center