The County’s Department of Community Justice provides supervision for youth and adults under supervision, holding them accountable while addressing the underlying issues that lead to criminal behavior, and to help people heal. The County and partners coordinate efforts to provide wraparound services, including therapy, employment services, mental and behavioral health services, and housing for people leaving incarceration. The Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office also coordinates with domestic violence teams to ensure compliance with laws regarding guns. The County and Cities also fund upstream interventions with long-term impacts designed to heal and repair cycles of violence.     

Examples include: 

  • The Community Healing Initiative (CHI): A long-standing collaborative partnership between Multnomah County’s Department of Community Justice (DCJ), Latino Network, Portland Opportunities Industrialization Center (POIC) and others, designed to decrease youth involvement in the justice system by providing culturally appropriate community support to youth on probation and their families. 
  • Flip the Script: This Central City Concern program provides services for people of color leaving incarceration by providing employment, peer support, securing housing and providing opportunities for advocacy.
  • Department of Community Justice African American Program teaches H.E.A.T. or Habilitation, Empowerment, Accountability, Therapy curriculum. 
  • The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office Gun Dispossession Unit and Civil Processing Unit: prepares the service and execution of court orders to ensure firearm removal compliance, reducing threat of violence to self, family, and community.

Additional long-term strategies include: