Idaho lacks secure mental health facility for
dangerous patients
Monday, December 17, 2007 11:19 AM PST
BLACKFOOT (AP) — Idaho needs a secure place to house its violent mentally ill people accused of serious crimes, mental health and corrections officials say.
Although the state has two mental hospitals, neither has a secure wing where people ruled incompetent to stand trial can be housed and treated.
Efforts are under way to remodel existing facilities, or build a new secure wing, but such a facility could cost $70 million or more.
“Mental illness is a significant problem for people everywhere,’’ Sen. Joe Stegner, R-Lewiston, told the Post Register of Idaho Falls. “If we don’t act now, we’ll continue to suffer the consequences.’’
Earlier this year, legislators approved an emergency fund with enough money to cover a portion of a secure facility’s costs.
Meanwhile, lawmakers are looking at an interim solution, including remodeling a wing at the Idaho State School and Hospital in Nampa to provide 25 secure beds. But that $3.3 million project requires legislative approval and wouldn’t be ready until at least 2009. In the meantime, violent patients are shuffled between Idaho’s prisons and mental hospitals. Idaho law says a person deemed dangerous will be committed to the Department of Health and Welfare or the Department of Corrections for up to 90 days.
Then, if still ruled incompetent to stand trial, they can be committed to the custody of Health and Welfare for an indeterminate period of time.
But the state’s mental hospitals lack secure wings in which to house them, and prisons are not equipped to deal with mental health issues.
The issue came to a head last month when 28-year-old Harley Park, who is accused of killing a man in 2003 by kicking him in the head with steel-toed work boots, was transferred out of Idaho’s maximum security prison near Boise to State Hospital South in Blackfoot.
Park’s move prompted a public outcry from state hospital employees who contend that neither the hospital nor staff was equipped to deal with such a dangerous patient.
Park had been housed in the Idaho State Maximum Security Institution’s secure medical unit until November 2006, when a 5th District Court judge determined he was incompetent to stand trial on murder charges and ordered him committed to a state mental institution.
Park was the last patient at the prison who was involuntarily committed, corrections department spokesman Jeff Ray said.
Dr. Mary Perrien, corrections department education and treatment division chief, said three beds reserved at the prison for civil commitments under Health and Welfare’s custody are empty.
At any given time, Health and Welfare has 25 dangerous clients under its care, said Kathleen Allyn, the agency’s behavioral health administrator.
But the goal is to get them treatment in less restrictive settings than a maximum-security prison, she said.
In April, six doctors at State Hospital South in Blackfoot wrote Allyn that the Blackfoot hospital is not prepared ‘’to ensure the safety of our employees or this community if a dangerous client were to act violently.’’
The doctors said they are concerned about the ramifications of a violent client escaping from the facility, which they allege happens an average of more than once a month.
Tom Shanahan, a Health and Welfare spokesman, said State Hospital South is just below the national average escape rate, compiled by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute.
Unlike the state prison and secure mental facilities in other states, State Hospital South has no perimeter or armed guards.
However, neither Shanahan nor Allyn know of any incident where a patient escaped and harmed someone in recent years.
Shanahan said the dangerous patients at Blackfoot and State Hospital North in Orofino are assessed daily. If needed, escorts can monitor patients round the clock, he said.
‘’It’s not an ideal situation,’’ he said. ‘’We have gaps in our system.’’
It’s not unusual for a small state like Idaho to lack a facility for violent mentally ill offenders, said Dr. Jeffery Geller, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts.
Most traditionally haven’t had the resources to build separate secure facility, he said.
But because Idaho has two mental hospitals, Geller said at least one could have a wing where dangerous patients could be treated.
‘’The answer is not to put people in jail, it’s to have the staff get trained,’’ he said.
The Department of Corrections and Health and Welfare are exploring ways to treat the dangerous mentally ill in environments that are conducive to treatment and safe for everyone. Doing so in county jails violates state law, however.
The long-term goal is a 300-bed secure facility developed by the Department of Corrections and Health and Welfare, where both agencies would have beds.
The 2007 Legislature earmarked $3 million for the planning and design of such a facility.
Stegner, who served as chairman a committee examining mental health issues, said he is confident lawmakers will come up with the money needed to pay for a secure facility.
