A group of Hays County officials say their goal is to help people who are having mental health issues and keep them out of the county jail.
Ricardo Delgado
San Antonio Express-News
Ricardo Delgado, San Antonio Express-News, Staff writers
Hays County leaders say they are teaming up to work toward a singular goal: Finding ways to keep people who are having a mental health crises out of jail.
The Hays County Behavioral Advisory Team was formed in March, with its mission to reform the county’s behavioral health services, according to its charter. The group includes San Marcos Police Chief Stan Standridge, Hays County District Attorney Kelly Higgins and other local officials.
The group is in its early stages and has yet to secure funding or receive official county approval for its goals, but members of the Hays County Commissioners Court have expressed support for the idea.
According to its charter, the Behavioral Advisory Team's priorities are:
- Build and operate a diversion center for people having mental health issues, to keep them out of the Hays County Jail.
- Explore the development of a Behavioral Health Office to coordinate county services.
- Improve how law enforcement agencies respond to behavioral health crises.
- Develop strategies to help people who regularly experience mental health issues and to help people who have been in jail resume their place in the community.
- Increase information and data sharing between county agencies.
“We still see that the No. 1 portal for a person to receive (mental health) services in San Marcos, Hays County and in fact in the entire state of Texas continues to be through 911,” Standridge said. “That's got to change.”
The diversion center is the plan’s keystone, Standridge said. Diversion centers are places where people can receive help for behavioral health issues instead of passing through the criminal justice system. The Behavioral Advisory Team hasn't given estimates for what size facility it is proposing, or how much it would cost to build and operate.
Some suggestions for a brick-and-mortar location for a diversion center included vacant hospital buildings or using a part of existing hospitals. The Behavioral Advisory Team has identified potential funding sources set aside by the state for mental health facilities but has yet to secure any funding. It's also not clear what county agency would operate the facility.
Some members of the Behavioral Advisory Team went before the Hays County Commissioners Court this month. Higgins told the court he wants to avoid “criminalizing biology” and focus on restoration.
Higgins said people with mental illnesses or who are declared incompetent to stand trial can get trapped in the criminal justice system for misdemeanors if they can't make bail. The wait for a bed in a state hospital is 20 months, according to Higgins.
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra expressed support for the Behavioral Advisory Team proposal, seeing it as a way to better use taxpayers' money.
“I think we should diminish our outsourcing (of inmates) costs and re-appropriate them in ways that are most useful so that we can help our community, so that our residents can stay well supported, working, going to school, having a job paying taxes... not sitting in jail sucking down resources that there's no end in sight for.”
'They have unmet needs'
Experts on mental health and criminal justice say government agencies need to move away from punishing people with mental health issue and focus on providing treatment and assistance.
The behavioral problems often comes from acute mental illness or a substance abuse disorder, said Alycia Welch, associate director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. She said a "health-based" approach is more likely to to be successful than punitive measures.
“The reason that (people are) cycling in and out of the criminal justice system is that they have unmet needs,” Welch said.
Diversion centers are just one piece of the puzzle, Welch said. Housing and behavioral health services need to be a part of the solution, she said, otherwise diversion centers run the risk of being just another detention center.
“That's really what the focus of these planning efforts need to be — continuously figuring out ways to bring additional services online, to bring additional housing options online, because this is a statewide problem,” Welch said. “We just don't have the capacity for services and housing that we need to have.”
Harris and Williamson counties have diversion centers that provide “respite beds” that allow residents to remain in a “safe, supportive environment” for 72 to 96 hours, Welch said. Other counties should look into similar diversion programs, she said, with a careful watch on how they’re rolled out.
Finding the funding for those kinds of programs — and finding people qualified to run them — can be a challenge, said Michael Davis, an assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
“We're limited in the human beings that can do some of these things,” Davis said. “So you can build these big facilities, but who's going to work with them?”
Seeking a culture change
Hays County’s interest in a diversion program could be reflective of greater societal understanding of mental health issues, Davis said.
Law enforcement agencies need to undergo a culture change, said Davis, who spent 23 years in law enforcement. He said there’s often a report and “move-on” mentality among police officers.
Hiring more specialized mental health professionals trained in a “case management style” more akin to parole officers and doing a “soft handoff” of those responsibilities would help, Davis said.
Ideally, people with mental health issues could get help without being charged with a crime, Welch said.
“When somebody has a record, it's much harder to get a job, it's much harder to get their needs addressed,” Welch said. “That's the bottom line.”
Diversion centers and affiliated programs save taxpayers money in the long run, Welch said. Funding is now funneled into jails filled with inmates who cycle in and out of the system. Keeping the system the way it is will only exacerbate the problem, Welch said.
“That doesn't work,” Welch said. “We have tried that for decades.”