Federal funding for corrections officer mental health screenings and crisis referrals
H.R. 2305 — Corrections Officer Blake Schwarz Suicide Prevention Act of 2025 · Filed by Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA) · 6 cosponsors · Introduced Mar 24, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a federal grant program to fund mental health screenings and referrals for corrections officers in prisons and jails. The Attorney General will distribute $50–70 million annually (2026–2030) to states and local governments to hire staff, develop screening surveys, and establish outreach teams that connect officers showing signs of severe mental illness to treatment providers. The bill is named after Blake Schwarz, a corrections officer who died by suicide.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a straightforward federal grant program to fund mental health screening and referral services for a specific occupational group (corrections officers) facing elevated suicide risk. It is not a regulatory carve-out, tax provision, or industry subsidy—it is direct public investment in occupational health.
What the text implies
- The bill requires mental health screening surveys to be 'anonymous and confidential,' but also mandates that eligible detention centers hire a 'mental health liaison staff member' to coordinate referrals. This creates potential tension between anonymity and follow-up outreach, and may require officers to disclose identity to receive referral services.
- The Advisory Board is tasked with 'identifying and neutralizing any impediment to self-reporting, including loss of job and benefits,' but the bill does not explicitly prohibit disciplinary action against officers who disclose mental health conditions. Protections against retaliation are implied but not statutory.
- The bill allocates 50% of grant funds to local governments and 20% to states, but does not specify minimum standards for mental health provider availability in rural or underserved areas. Funding may concentrate in urban centers with existing mental health infrastructure.
- Mental health care providers are defined as 'fully-licensed professionals...who operate near to the relevant jail or prison,' but 'near' is undefined. This may limit access in rural jurisdictions where licensed providers are geographically distant.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
The bill directly addresses a documented public-health crisis—corrections officer suicide—by funding evidence-based mental health screening and referral systems. Corrections officers are a vulnerable workforce with elevated suicide rates, and the program provides them with accessible mental health support without apparent cost-shifting to the general public or restrictions on citizen rights.
Who stands to gain
- mental health care providers and clinics
- hospital systems offering mental health services
- state and local government agencies (administrative capacity)
- pharmaceutical companies (indirect, through increased mental health treatment referrals)
Named in the bill
Attorney General, Bureau of Prisons, Advisory Board on Program Implementation, State governments, Local governments, Mental health care providers, Corrections officers, Blake Schwarz (namesake)
Where it stands
6 cosponsors: 5 Republicans, 1 Democrats.
- Mar 24, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Mar 24, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 lobbying clients named this bill on 1 disclosure filings across 1 quarter, Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $630,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 59 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 0% of bills with at least one filing.
Mariannette Miller-Meeks, the sponsor, reported $2,407,952 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees — $630,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (9,953 characters) on Aug 13, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Jun 2026 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“Federal funding for corrections officer mental health screenings and crisis referrals” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr2305 Report an error
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