Bringing NIATx to Corrections: Improving Access to Treatment

People in the criminal justice system often have a hard time making a successful re-entry to their communities. And those in need of substance abuse treatment face additional barriers in gaining access to the treatment services they need.

From 2011 to 2013, the Council of State Governments Justice Center (CSG Justice Center) conducted a NIATx project to facilitate community reentry for people leaving prisons and jails in three sites: Dekalb County, Georgia, Durham County, North Carolina, and the State of Maryland.

The Access to Treatment: Bringing NIATx to Corrections developed a set of recommendations to help criminal justice and substance use treatment systems improve transitions between institutional and community care. Recommendations included:

·      Collaborate across systems

·      Increase communication and information-sharing

·      Reduce duplication of efforts and streamline processes

·      Monitor the process improvements and focus on data collection 

The CSG Justice Center presented a webinar on the project in January 2016. View the recorded webinar, Bringing NIATx to Corrections, download a PDF of the presentation, or read the paper: Bringing NIATx to Corrections: Lessons Learned from Three Pilot Studies