Once officials have determined the criteria they will use to measure the impact of the program, they need to be sure they will capture the relevant data.  In addition, they need to establish a baseline, which serves as a benchmark against which progress can be measured. 

Implementing many of the policy statements in this report should facilitate the collection of data that would accomplish both these goals.   For instance, Policy Statement 2: Request for Police Service explains the value of tagging calls for assistance that appear to involve a person with mental illness.  Policy Statement 11: Pretrial Release / Detention Hearing addresses the importance of screening a pretrial defendant for mental illness.  Policy Statement 13: Intake at County / Municipal Detention Facility and Policy Statement 17: Receiving and Intake of Sentenced Inmates provides for screening people with mental illness when they enter a jail or prison.  The recommendations below suggest how state and local government officials can capitalize on these and other opportunities to assemble valuable data. 

Recommendations:

a.

Agree upon common definitions of mental illness and the characteristics of the general target population

b.

Capitalize on existing management information systems to facilitate data collection and analysis.

c.

Solicit comments and opinions from staff, crime victims, family members, and  program participants.

d.

Establish procedures early in the process to share information that will facilitate the data collection of people served by both the criminal justice and mental health systems.