2022 State Conference

DJ Jaffe is Executive Director of the independent, non-partisan Mental Illness Policy Org., and author of Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill. For over 30 years, he has been advocating to reduce homelessness, arrest, incarceration and needless hospitalization of the most severely mentally ill, a group he believes has been ignored by CMHS and SAMHSA, abandoned by many mental health advocates and systems, and offloaded to criminal justice. He served on the national NAMI board and was a founding board member of the Treatment Advocacy Center and works extensively with criminal justice because they have become the experts on serious mental illness. DJ is a go-to source for reporters covering serious mental illness and criminalization. His thoughtful and controversial op-eds have appeared the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall St. Journal and other publications. He is credited as being the driving force behind Kendra’s Law and Congress incorporated ideas proposed by DJ in the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. DJ develops policies focused on returning responsibility for the seriously back to mental health departments by increasing the number of hospital beds, making civil commitment easier, expanding use of Assisted Outpatient Treatment, and focusing mental health dollars on those who need help the most, rather than the least. He lives in Harlem, NY.

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