Triage center for mentally ill envisioned

LORRINE THOMPSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published January 20, 2002

THURSTON COUNTY -- An evaluation and detox center designed to benefit mentally ill offenders and law enforcement agencies could be operating by next year.

The center would provide police with a place to take those who are arrested whose behavior is strange or out of control, possibly due to mental illness or drug or alcohol problems.

The triage center would provide professional screening to determine the cause for the behavior, detox services for offenders high on drugs or alcohol, and psychiatric treatment beds.

The Thurs-ton County Commission approved hiring an architect for the center, which might be open by summer of 2003, Commissioner Cathy Wolfe said.

The county received a $300,000 grant from the state, which will pay for preliminary work such as the architect and site-selection studies. The center and its ongoing costs would be paid through mental health funds the county gets from the state.

The triage center is one element among many that are needed in South Sound to create a system where mentally ill people and offenders get the help they need, said Wolfe and county Chief of Corrections Karen Daniels.

Many mentally ill people arrested for "crimes of survival" such as stealing food or for nuisance crimes end up cycling through the jail again and again, straining jail resources and harming their own treatment, officials said.

"I think (the triage center) has a potential to have a real positive impact," Daniels said.

Currently, when an inmate is brought to the jail acting strangely, "we don't know what a person's behavior is based on," she said.

"If they're a threat to themselves or others, we use restraints," Daniels said.

"That's where a triage center would help out, with that initial intake."

The jail has mental health professionals to call for evaluations, but they are not available 24 hours a day, and the jail has no facilities other than a restraint chair for prisoners acting out.

Prisoners can arrive acting assaultive, or with behaviors like stripping off clothes, spreading feces on walls, banging heads on walls or "just basically out of control," Daniels said.

The triage center has been a hope of county officials for many months, Wolfe said.

It's one part of a support system that needs to be constructed to keep mentally ill people from living in the jail where they don't belong, she said, and to support families in South Sound.

"So we're not just building more jails," Wolfe said.

"We know we have to build a new jail now, but we don't want to do it again in our lifetime," she said.

She and Daniels, along with mental health professionals and law enforcement officials, make up a Mentally Ill Offenders task force that is looking into other ways to improve the system.

For instance, the jail recently instituted a transitions program, so that mentally ill people get counseling and prescriptions upon leaving the jail, in hopes they won't go off medication and quickly end up in jail again.

"This is for the frequent fliers who cycle in a lot because they don't have their meds," Daniels said.

Another recent change allows jail staff to refer new prisoner names to mental health professionals, to check if the prisoners are enrolled in mental health programs.

That way, quiet prisoners with mental health problems can be identified and get the counseling and medication they need.

Many of the activities of the task force cost little money, Daniels said.

"It's coordinating a system that's going every which way," she said.

Daniels gives Wolfe high marks for keeping the task force going, after it was initially created to look into lack of psychiatric treatment beds in South Sound, when Wolfe was a legislator.

"She could have dropped it when she became a county commissioner, but she kept it going," Daniels said.

The triage center is a critical step in the right direction, but more will be needed to fill the gaps in South Sound's mental health system, said Bill Pilkey, president of the local chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

The recent shooting of a mentally ill man by Olympia police officers points to the need for mental health services, police training and a criminal justice system that understands mental illness, he said.

The triage center "is necessary. It's essential," Pilkey said. "Jail is not a place to put someone with a mental illness."

Lorrine Thompson covers Thurston County and health for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5431.

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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