Mental illness services limited

COEUR d'ALENE - Law enforcement personnel in Kootenai County encounter residents with mental illness on a regular basis. In the event those residents commit a crime and are sent to jail, treatment and housing options are limited.

"There's no great answer and unfortunately people with mental illness commit crimes too," Kootenai County Sheriff Ben Wolfinger said. "Our system doesn't have a place to put people like that who need medical services and also incarceration while pending trial or whatever else."

When people do enter the jail with mental illness, Wolfinger said they have contracted doctors who are able to do limited evaluations and keep prescriptions up to date. Recent budget cuts eliminated the psychiatric nurse practitioner position at the jail and the jail's medical staff is unable to diagnose any mental illness because they lack psychiatric training.

"We'd like to be able to get in front of those issues because I think it's better for everybody. It's better for us, it's better for the inmate with a mental illness and it's ultimately better for the community," Wolfinger said. "If we can send them out the door having been properly diagnosed by a psychiatric professional with some references for follow-up treatment options, I think we would all benefit from that."

Kootenai County Public Defender John Adams told The Press he has met with personnel at the jail and, after assessing the conditions for inmates with mental illness, agrees that more attention to the issue is needed.

"Right now, the biggest concern at the jail is a lack of staff members who are properly trained and qualified to handle inmates with mental health issues," Adams said.

The jail, according to Adams, is not an adequate place to house mentally ill people who encounter law enforcement officers.

"Jails aren't medical care facilities, especially for something as specialized as mental health," Adams said. "It's important to our community that people who need to be treated are taken care of in ways other than being locked in a cage."

Adams said a solution to the issue would be a facility that could adequately treat those with mental illness.

"If we had a regional health facility, like the one we didn't receive recently, and officers responded to some mentally ill person, they could bring that person to the facility," Adams said. "Until we get one of those, people are going to be taken to the jail to be assessed and housed."

In order to truly tackle the problem, Wolfinger said more needs to be done for the mentally ill before they even commit a crime.

"Having resources that we can refer people to before they get to the jail is huge and we just don't have that here," Wolfinger said. "If you're dealing with somebody on the street who obviously has mental health issues, where do you send them to get help? It's not like we don't want to, it's just not available."

Deputies on patrol are trained to recognize the signs that they are dealing with a person potentially with mental illness. However, when it comes to offering those people help, Wolfinger said with so few options and strict guidelines for protective holds, deputies are forced to suggest some options and hold their breath hoping those options will be explored.

"We can only take someone into protective custody if we have reason to believe that they're a danger to themselves or others," Wolfinger said. "That's a pretty high bar for us to reach. I understand that it's important to have that bar and it allows us to deal with the people that are suicidal or the people that are severely mentally ill. But we have to reach that bar and we can't always do that."

Often, Wolfinger said when people with mental illness do enter the justice system it is because they are self-medicating with illegal drugs. He said that the existence of the Kootenai County Mental Health Court, one of the few in Idaho, is a benefit to these individuals.

"At least that program seems to get people back on the right track," Wolfinger said. "They have a high success rate of non-recidivism and that's our ultimate goal."

However, the issue of mental illness is much more global, according to Wolfinger, and incarceration shouldn't be the only solution.

"Just because somebody is mentally ill doesn't mean they need to go to jail," Wolfinger said. "They need to be able to have some resources to go to and that's the tough part for our guys because where do you refer them?"