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.