After an inmate with mental health issues punched a Montezuma County detention sergeant in the face in late November, Sheriff Steve Nowlin said he hopes 2019 will be a year to make progress for offenders and patients with mental health disorders.
Nowlin said his office is writing a grant application seeking Jail-Based Behavioral Health Services funding from the Colorado Department of Human Services. The Colorado General Assembly in May passed SB 18-250, allocating additional funding to address gaps in mental health services in jails, primarily in rural counties. The funding, which will be announced in January, will assist in screening, assessing, diagnosing and treating mental health disorders.
The money could help reduce recidivism, particularly among individuals who are dependent on alcohol or have mental health issues. In a recent incident related to mental health at the Montezuma County Detention Center, an inmate named McKale Dick on Nov. 29 struck a detention sergeant in the mouth with both hands in a closed fist when the sergeant entered a holding cell to retrieve paperwork, according to an MCSO incident report.
Nowlin said the same inmate had recently jumped off the railing in a pod at the county jail, intentionally injuring himself and breaking both ankles. Nowlin said Dick has serious mental health issues and is currently awaiting an evaluation and a bed at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo.
“This is who we deal with more and more,” Nowlin said.
Jagruti Shah, director of criminal justice services for CDHS, said the Montezuma County Detention Center already provides substance abuse services, but there’s a big need for mental health services.
When an individual is booked into jail, she said many rural counties in Colorado don’t have a process to screen for mental health.
“That’s really a function of not having the resources or the training,” Shah said.
The Senate bill passed in May allocated $2.4 million in contract costs for the first six months of 2019 and $4.9 million annually beginning July 1, the start of the new fiscal year, and continuing every fiscal year thereafter. Funding is distributed based on the size of jails, Shah said. Montezuma County is eligible to receive $40,000 in the first months of 2019 and $97,000 annually by fiscal year after that.
That funding could help pay for psychotropic medication or clinical staff, like a nurse practitioner or possibly a psychiatrist, Shah said. The clinical staff would establish protocols and either conduct mental health screenings directly or train deputies to conduct screenings.
“Having those put into the workflow of the booking process is what we’re looking at,” Shah said.
She said transitional services are a big focus of the new funding. Once an inmate gets out of a rural jail, Shah said CDHS wants to make sure a case manager will provide continuity by linking the individual with community resources like emergency housing and long-term access to medication.
Similar Jail-Based Behavioral Health Services programs have reduced recidivism in drug-related offenses by 24 percent, according to Shah.
“The resources can go toward paying for some of those immediate needs that take a person back to exactly where they were before they were arrested,” Shah said.
The new funding opportunity focuses primarily on rural and “frontier” jails in Colorado because most large and mid-size jails already have mental health services. Shah said larger jails are able to contract out mental health services, but rural jails often struggle to pay for psychotropic medication and clinical staff that focus on mental health.
“We’re very excited to finally have the resources out to the communities that we have seen as a huge gap population,” Shah said.
