Counties across the state, including Lewis County, have filed a lawsuit against the state for failure to provide adequate mental health services to people who have criminal charges dropped.
“When DSHS failed to provide restoration services, individuals were referred back to their home counties, effectively passing the responsibility of care from the state to the county, despite state law dictating otherwise,” Lewis County Commissioner Sean Swope said Tuesday.
The lawsuit, filed last week in Pierce County Superior Court, argues the state Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) is failing to meet an “obligation to evaluate and treat patients with behavioral health conditions.”
According to the Washington State Association of Counties (WSAC), a request for preliminary injunction asks the court to order DSHS to comply with legal obligations and “creates a pathway for the court to make an immediate determination of the underlying legal issue and to restore the civil conversion commitment process.”
A hearing on the preliminary injunction could be heard Sept. 8 in Pierce County Superior Court.
“The request for a preliminary injunction seeks to compel DSHS to adhere to its responsibilities, offering a direct route for the court to address the underlying legal issue and reinstate the civil conversion commitment process,” Swope said.
The civil conversion process “focuses on people with severe behavioral health conditions who have not been adequately served by the crisis and outpatient behavioral health system,” according to WSAC.
According to the WSAC, the state increasingly does not evaluate or treat many “patients in need of behavioral health support.”
“Currently, incompetent criminal defendants in Washington wait about seven months before getting treatment at one of the state’s mental hospitals,” the state Republican Party said in a statement Tuesday. “State law and federal court orders call for a maximum wait time of seven days.”
Last month, a federal judge imposed a $100 million fine against the DSHS for a failure to provide proper mental health services for inmates in Washington jails.
“We’re living with the consequences — rampant drug abuse, inhumane treatment of mentally-ill people and violent crime rising in our neighborhoods,” state Republican Party Chairman Jim Walsh said in a statement. “People who are too mentally ill to stand trial for their criminal actions shouldn’t be turned out into the streets. They should be in Western State Hospital.”
Swope said the county faces a “gross lack” of mental health services.
“This pre-existing deficiency, combined with the rise in drug addiction, has only exacerbated the gap in essential services,” Swope said. “When DSHS doesn’t meet its responsibilities, individuals, deemed not competent for trial, are reintroduced into the community without receiving the necessary treatments.”
Swope said this creates risks to public safety, strains the county’s mental health services infrastructure and “perpetuates a cycle where individuals re-enter the legal system repeatedly without getting the intervention they desperately need.”
