Across the United States, deflection is an emerging field, movement, and policy area. Easily defined as moving people away from the justice system at the point-of-encounter with police, and instead towards community-based treatment, housing, services, and recovery, deflection sits at the intersection of public safety, treatment, community-based services, supports, and most critically, the community itself.

In 2022, three key national organizations – the National Governors Association (NGA), the National Criminal Justice Association (NCJA), and the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) - joined with PTACC to convene a small group of state-level leaders who are working in deflection to respond to this challenge. It started with a desire by PTACC to assess the interest in a national peer-to-peer deflection learning community. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and the desire to start has already led to word-of-mouth growth from these first conversations.

State leaders indicated a desire to work together to share information, explore best practices, and solve problems from the state perspective related to sustainability, legislation, policy, and outcomes. They also mentioned the need to convene to determine how their deflection networks can be leveraged to assist in other major initiatives such as crisis response, police reform, healthcare transformation, and service expansion to underserved communities including inner city, rural, frontier, and tribal.

This Workgroup is led by Jac Charlier, jac.charlier@ptaccollaborative.org, and Dr. Kelly Firesheets, kelly.firesheets@cordatahealth.com. Stay tuned for updates or join us to contribute your expertise!