This document serves as a style guide for Bureau of Justice Assistance staff and contractors who are responsible for producing printed or online content for BJA and BJA grantees, and training and technical assistance providers, who develop content including the BJA logo.
This style guide provides guidelines for content related to criminal justice and behavioral health and intellectual and development disabilities (IDD), including concepts, terminology, and definitions. The purpose of the guide is to simplify the federal review process by enabling consistent content creation and standardization across programs that focus on diversion at Sequential Intercepts 0-1. The Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) is a conceptual model to guide community and systemwide responses to individuals with mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the criminal justice system. This document is divided into six sections after the purpose and overview section: the use of SIM as the system framework for criminal justice and behavioral health content; diversion at Intercepts 0-1 – the importance of specificity; a note about terminology; models of crisis response and diversion; a glossary of standard definitions and terms; and endnotes.