Individuals suffering from mental illnesses or drug and alcohol dependencies now fill our jails, courts and hospitals. On any given day, the King County Jail houses more mentally ill people than any other institution in the state after Western State Hospital. The criminalization of mental illness and the cycle of drug dependency are nationwide tragedies that deeply impact King County.

Significant numbers of persons with serious mental illness and/or chemical dependency are caught up in the criminal justice system and become part of the so-called “chronic recidivist” and “chronically homeless” population. Usually a suspect booked into the jail is out within 72 hours. Those who do stay beyond three days spend an average of 12 days for a misdemeanor offense and 24 days for a felony offense. Those with serious mental illness and/or chemical challenges—many who are there for non-violent offenses—spend an average of 158 days in jail. The average daily cost for housing a person in the jail is $98. For the “Special Needs” population, because of the additional staff needed to observe and keep safe individuals who are at greater risk for suicide and to the extra costs for psychiatric services and medications that cost jumps to $300 a day.

The innovative Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Action Plan is a countywide effort to shift the focus from incarcerating the mentally ill or chemically dependent to providing treatment that keeps them out of the criminal justice system and on the road to leading healthy, productive lives.

The Council held a Town Hall Meeting on June 25, 2007 to discuss the Mental Illness & Drug Dependency Action Plan. The largest audience to ever attend a Town Hall packed the Shoreline Conference Center to discuss the plan. Read more.

The Action Plan is aimed at protecting the public by holding offenders accountable for their actions, reduce the motivation for common crimes such as car theft and ID theft, and restore the lives of those afflicted by disabling mental illness and chemical dependency. Its proposals for a wide range of services and outcomes include:

• Giving people in crisis a safe place to rest: creating a crisis diversion center where police, doctors and family can take individuals who are having a crisis, but aren’t breaking the law or are having a medical crisis

• Training police to help people who are having a mental health or substance abuse related crisis: providing crisis intervention training for police and other first responders who are first to an incident gives officers skills to keep a crisis event from growing to the point where someone is injured or jailed

• Helping people return to communities as they leave jail or the hospital: assisting mentally ill or chemically dependent people to transition out of a facility, finding them a treatment provider, helping them get their medicine and often, helping them find a place to live

• Keeping kids alive: providing suicide prevention grants to 19 school districts in King County to raise suicide awareness in kids, help schools develop policies, train teachers and educate parents.

• Keeping kids out of hospitals and jails when they don’t need to be there: expanding crisis outreach activities and creating a reception center for children and youth enables parents, doctors and police to have other options rather than jail or the hospital for kids who are undergoing a mental health or substance abuse event and don’t need medical attention.

The Action Plan is being developed in three stages:
• Creating a plan for an integrated continuum of services using existing resources.

• Recommending changes in criminal case processing to better direct people with mental illness and chemical dependency,
and to provide appropriate service and housing options.

• Recommending actions to bring all items identified above to full scale to meet existing needs as well as a proposal for financing improvements. This will likely involve discussion of a possible sales tax increase of .1%.

The Washington state Legislature included provision for the county option sales tax in an omnibus bill adopted in 2005 to address a wide range of problems regarding the public care and treatment of mentally ill and chemically dependent persons, including those persons with both problems or “co-occurring disorders”.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE ACTION PLAN

In September 2006, Phase I of the Action Plan—describing the service and housing improvements needed to achieve the full continuum of services—was submitted to the Council. The recommendations included:

• Establishing countywide crisis diversion facilities, serving adults and juveniles that divert people away from the criminal/juvenile system by providing access to assessment, stabilization, services and treatment.

• Maintain and expand therapeutic courts and community links to services for juvenile offenders

• Expansion of Family Treatment Court and Juvenile Drug Court.

• Expediting processes involving competency evaluations and restorations to reduce time people stay in jail.

• Providing access to concurring disorder treatment for all people being released from jail who need this type of treatment.

• Provide a wide range of employment opportunities for those at risk of involvement in the justice system due to mental illness and/or chemical dependency. Provide mental illness/chemical dependency services to youth in work training

• Increase access to educational services for youth who are recovering from alcohol and drug abuse.

Phase II of the action plan has been completed and was transmitted to Council in early April. The report identifies key decision points in system processes, particularly the juvenile and adult justice systems that provide opportunities for diversion and transition as well as changes in policies, processes and services needed to implement successful diversion and transition strategies.

Phase III of the plan will:
• Determine the services that will best serve the needs of the target populations;

• Recommend options for early identification and prevention of mental illness and chemical dependency;

• Set priorities for system changes and services; and

• Estimate costs for needed services and identifying a potential funding source;


Proposed Programs that may come out of this plan cover a wide range of services:

• Increased access to mental health and chemical dependency outpatient services for people not on Medicaid.

• Emergency room substance abuse early intervention programs.

• Outreach for individuals leaving hospitals, jails or crisis facilities.

• Prevention and early intervention mental health and substance abuse services for older adults

• Prevention services to children of substance abusers

• Crisis intervention training for King County Sheriff, police, jail staff, and other first responders

• Increasing the capacity of Harborview’s Psychiatric Emergency Services to link individuals to community-based services when discharged from the emergency room

• Employment services for individuals with mental illness and chemical dependency

• Expanded assessments for youth in the juvenile system

• Wraparound programs and support services for emotionally disturbed youth

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This page was last updated on October 17, 2007

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