By Delaney Smith, Santa Barbara Independent, February 5, 2020
As part of Santa Barbara County’s overhaul of its criminal justice system, the Board of Supervisors accepted a nearly $6 million grant Tuesday to fund a treatment program for minor offenders suffering from drug addiction or mental illness in an effort to divert them from jail.
“Basically what it means is we are taking the most vulnerable individuals who suffer from substance-abuse and mental-health issues — who often end up in our jail because there’s no supportive housing, no services or linkage to that directly — and build a system based on this grant and others that are coming in to do engagement in the field and get them to services,” said public defender Tracy Macuga.
Known as the Crisis Intervention, Diversion and Support (CIDS) program, it’s part of the second round of funding from Proposition 47, which was passed in California in 2014 to lessen low-level nonviolent crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Santa Barbara County lost out when it applied for the first round of Prop. 47 grants in 2017.
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