This award-winning and Peabody-nominated podcast documents how locals are addressing the role of jails in their backyards. Reporters travel around the country and hear from people directly impacted by their encounter with jails and to chronicle the progress ground-up efforts have made in diversion, bail reform, recidivism, adoption of technology and other crucial aspects of the move toward decarceration at local levels.
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episode 8: In Miami, Jailing Fewer, Treating More
This episode is a special collaboration with Miami’s WLRN radio station, whose reporters Nadege Green and Daniel Rivero report on the county’s Criminal Mental Health Project which has been instrumental in diverting mentally ill people away from jail. They meet the judge to started the program and see how counselors, peer specialists, and officers are focusing on treatment and services rather than arrests.
Like in much of the country, jails in Miami-Dade County double as de facto mental health facilities for people with mental health issues cycling through the criminal justice system. But Miami-Dade’s Criminal Mental Health Project has taken the lead in addressing the needs of this population. Now it is a national model for how to tackle the interplay between mental illness and criminal justice, while driving down recidivism and jailing rates in the process. This episode is a special collaboration with Miami’s WLRN radio station, whose reporters Nadege Green and Daniel Rivero meet the judge who started the program and see how counselors, peer specialists, and officers are focusing on treatment and services rather than arrests.