Merced County, CA

08/11/2022 | News release | Distributed by Public on 08/11/2022 11:18

Merced County Probation Awarded $6 Million in Grant Funding to Support Pretrial Diversion Programs

The Merced County Probation Department is slated to receive a multi-million grant to help rehabilitate justice-involved individuals through job skills training, supportive services, and treatment options.

The funding comes from Proposition 47, a 2014 voter-approved initiative that reduced the penalties for some nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors and directed the state incarceration savings to be used to help justice-involved people rehabilitate their lives.

On July 25, 2022, the Board of State and Community Corrections awarded $125 million to 24 government and community-based organizations to fund a variety of recidivism-reduction programs.

The Merced County Probation Department will receive a total of $6 million dollars in state funds from September 1, 2022 to June 1, 2026 to implement a more robust pretrial diversion program that is for individuals who have mental health or substance use disorders.

The pretrial program will include a dedicated clinical team that will provide mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, intensive case management, restorative justice, job skills training/employment services, and housing related support.

Chief Probation Officer Kalisa Rochester held several planning meetings with community leaders, including public and private health service providers and Community Based Organizations-several of which were staffed by formerly justice-involved individuals-to design a program that would assist the County's most socially vulnerable population.

Rochester noted in her proposal, "Jails and prisons have become America's de-facto mental health facilities; however, they are not built, financed or structured to provide adequate mental health services. Our pretrial services program creates a framework for behavioral health, justice system partners, and community stakeholders to work collaboratively across systems to provide evidence-based programming to forward the dual goals of individual recovery and public safety risk reduction."

The Merced County Probation Department will invite governmental and non-governmental agencies to collaborate on a Request for Proposal (RFP) that will create a community-based treatment program that is aligned with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It is anticipated that at least 65 percent of the grant funding will go toward contracts with Non-Governmental Organizations to carry out the mission of the pretrial program.