A program that sent local inmates who were declared mentally incompetent to stand trial out of San Luis Obispo County for treatment showed promise, but is no longer available, according to SLO County Sheriff’s Office officials.
After sending those inmates to a jail in San Bernardino as part of a regional Jail Bed Competency Treatment Program (JBCT), SLO sheriff’s officials said the length of time for inmates waiting for treatment placement was cut significantly. The program is no longer available, but officials are talking about creating a local JBCT program as part of a slate of reforms to change the way the jail handles care for mentally ill inmates.
“We did have success with getting [inmates] down there, restored to competency, and getting them back to court in a timely manner,” SLO County Undersheriff Tim Olivas told New Times.
When someone charged with a criminal offense is found mentally unable to understand or participate in their own defense, they are ordered by the court to receive treatment until their competency is restored. In SLO County, defendants accused of felonies are sent to the Atascadero State Hospital, while misdemeanor defendants are sent to the county’s psychiatric facility.
However, a lack of spaces at those facilities has resulted in lengthy waits for transfer and treatment. A May 2017 investigation by New Times discovered that many inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial were languishing in the SLO County Jail for periods as long as 122 days waiting for a transfer. That included Andrew Holland, a mentally ill inmate who died in January 2017. Records showed that, at the time of his death, Holland had been declared incompetent to stand trial and had been waiting 12 days for a transfer.
In the wake of Holland’s death, the SLO County Sheriff’s Office found a regional JBCT run out of the West Valley Detention Center in San Bernardino County. The jail began sending inmates to the program in June 2017, according to a report from county staff. The use of the regional JBCT program cut the average wait time from 83 days to 60 days. In some cases, Olivas said some of the waits were as short as 30 days.
“The biggest benefit was that they had beds available,” he said. “It allows them to no longer linger in custody waiting for treatment.”
But SLO isn’t the only county having trouble finding space for inmates found incompetent to stand trial. More than 300 inmates throughout the state are waiting to get similar treatment. As other counties discovered the JBCT program in San Bernardino County, space quickly became unavailable.
“After we used it for about a month and a half, San Bernardino no longer had beds to offer,” Olivas said.
While still in a preliminary discussion and planning phase, a local version of the program would be limited to SLO County inmates and would provide services and treatment within the jail so inmates wouldn’t have to wait for placement in a state hospital. Olivas said the state would provide reimbursement for some costs of such a program.
“It would require additional staff … and we would need more space if we are going to do a program like that,” he said.
Consideration of a local JBCT program occurs as the jail has identified a growing number of inmates with mental health issues. Data collected as part of an expanded screening process for inmates entering the jail showed referrals for mental health services jumped more than 10 percent from December 2017 to January 2018. Δ
This article appears in Mar 1-11, 2018.
What really bothers me about this article is that you present this as though it reflected positively on the Sheriff. But there should have been contracts with other facilities in place from the get go. That is a basic responsibility of anyone running a correctional or medical facility. It is a basic responsibility for two reasons 1) liability and 2) because it enables compliance with court orders aka THE LAW. I would like to see what the Sheriff would say if I was pulled over for having a registration that expired 2 years ago and said that I had a committee working on improving that.
Mr. Kaney is totally off-base. The Sheriff’s Office has been trying for years to get County Mental Health to be more responsive. Andrew Holland’s case is a prime example. The County was trying to cut corners on its budget so it allowed Mental Health to be “understaffed” on weekends. When the Sheriff’s Office tried repeatedly to transfer Holland to mental health because he would not take his meds, Mental Health claimed they were at “capacity,” which was untrue. They just did not want be bothered by this difficult case. So, the jail was forced to keep Mr. Holland in restraints for the weekend and he died from a pulmonary embolism. The jail carefully complied with the written rules about use of restraints. The blame here goes to the County for not spending enough at mental health to handle these situations. You will note it was the medical malpractice liability insurance policy that paid the $5 million dollar settlement. There was no liability or improper behavior on the part of the Sheriff’s Office or jail staff. Melvin de la Motte