COLUMBUS, Ohio – A work group looking at how free up beds at Ohio’s psychiatric hospitals recommends creating local programs to proactively respond to mentally ill individuals who interact repeatedly with the criminal justice system.
The group came up with this and other recommendations in a report that Gov. Mike DeWine released Thursday afternoon.
Ohio’s six state-operated regional psychiatric hospitals are currently at 96% capacity. Their populations are almost exclusively made up of people who arrived from the criminal justice system. This includes people who transferred from jails, those ordered for restoration to competency to stand trial, and those ordered for treatment after a not-guilty-by-reason-of-insanity acquittal.
DeWine convened the work group earlier this year, seeking recommendations to free up more beds and also expand local options for mental health treatment and support across Ohio. Members of the group came from the fields of behavioral health, criminal justice and psychology, along with leaders from state agencies, community organizations and other local partners.
“At the heart of these recommendations is our desire to help all Ohioans in need of mental health supports access the right care, in the right place, at the right time,” DeWine said in a statement. “The work group’s comprehensive recommendations give us a unique chance to improve our delivery of mental health services and streamline recovery timelines for everyone — from individuals involved in the criminal justice system who have been ordered to our state psychiatric hospitals, to Ohio families whose loved ones are facing a mental health crisis and are in urgent need of treatment.”
Among the recommendations that the state has begun to work on:
- Further supporting statewide mental health crisis services – such as the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – to ensure people have someone to call, someone to respond when experiencing a mental health crisis.
- Increasing the number of available beds within the state’s regional psychiatric hospitals.
- Exploring strategies to recruit and retain the best and brightest minds to work in the state’s mental health care and criminal justice fields.
- Expanding cross-training for professionals working in the mental health care and criminal justice fields to help them understand their counterparts’ processes.
- Launching teams in the criminal justice system to link individuals with mental health or substance use disorders with opportunities to receive care.
- Creating local programs that proactively respond to individuals who interact repeatedly with criminal justice and mental health systems.
- Developing practices to better evaluate the mental health needs and risk concerns of those entering the criminal justice system.
- Using screening tools to ensure people are evaluated and accessing the right care, which can streamline motions for competency evaluation in the courts.
- Improving the consistency in access to necessary medications for those in jails with mental health or substance use disorders.
- Continuing ongoing work to expand the availability of community-based residential treatment facilities as avenues to step individuals out of inpatient care, while continuing the proper treatment needed to sustain recovery.
Having so many people from the criminal justice system in state psychiatric hospitals makes it practically impossible for others to access it, unless they commit a crime first, noted Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services Director LeeAnne Cornyn.
“Something needed to change,” said Cornyn, who served as chair of the work group. “At the same time, our group understood that we needed to go beyond merely adding additional hospital beds and understand the root causes of the gridlock. We met with experts in the mental health and criminal justice fields, as well as people who have lived in jails and our psychiatric hospitals, and many others, and determined that – considering the many interwoven aspects of mental health and criminal justice – there were several opportunities for improvement across these systems.”
Laura Hancock covers state government and politics for The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com.