Hundreds of thousands of Americans cycle through jails and prisons for mental illness, drug dependency, and homelessness rather than any dangerous act, and this film looks at three cities trying something else. In Seattle, Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion (LEAD) lets police redirect low-level drug offenders into treatment and services instead of booking them. Crisis Intervention Training (CIT) programs teach officers to de-escalate encounters with people in mental health crisis rather than arrest them. Salt Lake City's Housing First approach gives homeless residents apartments with no sobriety or treatment prerequisites attached, on the premise that stability has to come before recovery. The film cites figures on the scale of the problem, including estimates that a large share of state prisoners and jail detainees have a recent history of mental illness, and that tens of millions of Americans need treatment for drug or alcohol problems. Interviews and program footage make the case that these interventions cost less than incarceration and produce better outcomes, treating police, courts, and prisons as the wrong tools for problems that started outside the criminal justice system.