County leaders and local policymakers representing 50 jurisdictions in 37 states are set to converge on Washington, DC, April 17-19 to address the overrepresentation of people with mental illnesses in jails across the country.
The 50 teams were chosen to attend the National Stepping Up Summit, a first-of-its-kind summit hosted by The Council of State Governments (CSG) Justice Center, the National Association of Counties (NACo), and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Foundation to help policymakers and other local stakeholders create and/or refine plans to reduce the prevalence of people with mental illnesses in their jails.
Launched in May 2015 by the CSG Justice Center, NACo, and APA Foundation, Stepping Up: A National Initiative to Reduce the Number of People with Mental Illnesses in Jails was designed to rally local, state and national leaders around the goal of achieving a reduction in the number of people with mental illnesses in jail. To date, more than 240 counties—both urban and rural—across 41 states have passed resolutions to advance the goals of Stepping Up, representing about 30 percent of the U.S. population and more than half of the largest county jails in the country.
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