Blog Note: This item is included only to note that there is another state, Oregon, that uses the civil grand jury process, at least for jails inspection.
Mental health services for inmates at Multnomah County jails are not adequate, a citizen panel said this week.
The Corrections Grand Jury, which reviews the jail operations of the Sheriff's Office, released its annual report that praised much of the departments work but also repeated concerns about mental health and juvenile education. It convened Oct. 12 and spent seven weeks on the report.
"Sheriff (Dan Staton) will review it and talk with our administrative staff," said Lt. Steve Alexender, spokesman, about the report released during Christmas week. "We'll go over it and the sheriff will sit down the team."
The panel interviewed 68 people, including inmates, health-care workers, jailers, administrators and judges, and nearly all said jails have unintentionally become "the community's main resource to treat mental illness, although the system is not funded or resourced accordingly." Jury members visited the county's Inverness Jail, downtown detention center, courthouse holding areas, the Donald E. Long Juvenile Detention Center and the Columbia River Correctional Institution.
Multnomah County jails remain "a sub-optimal system" to treat mental health issues, according to the report, despite the availability of corrections and mental-health counselors, health workers, psychiatric nurse practitioners, registered nurses and forensic fellows, as well as deputies who are trained in communication and de-escalation techniques. For the second consecutive year, 43 percent of all jail inmates have been diagnosed with a mental health disorder but the exact number isn't given.
"Many inmates are in custody for a short time, release dates are unpredictable; jail is inherently stressful and there is little support in the community after release," the report says.
This year's report de-emphasized past concerns about suicide watches and the overtime paid by the taxpayer to keep deputies constantly watching inmates with serious mental health issues. Last year's grand jury report detailed significant concern about suicide watches that cost the taxpayer $900,000 in deputy overtime in fiscal 2014. Suicide watches have been key concerns by grand juries since 2011.
The county "reduced the need for suicide watches, which are extremely costly, by adding more mental health staff that can intervene with inmates sooner and more effectively," according to the report. Exactly how much the Sheriff's Office budgeted for overtime this year for suicide watches would likely not be available until next week, Alexander said.
Judges and county officials spanning the Sheriff's Office, District Attorney's Office, Health Department, told the panel of seven jurors the county should not and cannot solve the community's mental health problems on its own. The community needs an expansion of mental health services, including more treatment beds, service providers and more collaboration.
Jurors praised the effort to build the Unity Center for Behavioral Health, a joint project by several local hospitals through public and private donations, that should add 100 inpatient beds and a 24-hour emergency room to treat people with mental health crises.
Elsewhere, jurors praised the county for a partnership with Education Northwest that will cover $54,000 in research costs. The project should help the county and student inmates through the process of entering a juvenile detention facility, inmates' education while in the center and the process of re-enrolling in public school.
Education services, for at least two years, have been concerns from the jury, in particular the average 10-day stay for young people at a detention center. It often takes school districts 10 days to release student records, but state laws require students receive education the day after entry.
That means teachers at the detention centers must rely on parents and the students on their educational plans. Additionally, about 70 percent of the youth come with some level of trauma and two-thirds of the students are special education students, according to the report.
-- Tony Hernandez, The Oregonian/OregonLive
thernandez@oregonian.com
503-294-5928
@tonyhreports
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