In the Cascade County Commission meeting on March 11th, about $1.2 million was appropriated to the Cascade County Sheriff’s Office (CCSO).
The money will go toward the ‘crisis diversion grant program’ which was started last year.
The program is an effort to provide essential mental health services to inmates in need of care.
These are the initial funds given for this program, but Sheriff Slaughter said they will receive more in the future, which they are looking forward to in order to grow the program.
“That’s diverting them out of the jail, that’s setting them up with evaluations, that’s putting back the mobile response team, which we used to have to respond to crisis; because people who suffer from mental illness should not be suffering in jail, and so that is the whole idea behind it. And then hopefully more robust in the future,” Slaughter said.
Sheriff Slaughter added that this “won’t solve all the mental health problems in the jail, but it’s a step in the right direction.”
