DENVER (AP) - At least 100 inmates are languishing in Colorado jails without court-ordered mental health evaluations or treatment because officials are refusing to quickly admit them to the state mental hospital, an advocacy group said in court filings Wednesday.
The Disability Law Center said the state is violating a federal court settlement requiring the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo to admit inmates within 28 days after a judge orders a competency exam or rules an inmate is incompetent to stand trial. Some are waiting more than 90 days to be seen, sometimes longer than they would be if they pleaded guilty and served their sentences, the organization said.
Mentally ill inmates, many of them charged with minor offenses, reoffend, injure themselves or otherwise deteriorate while they wait behind bars, according to the filings, which point to several troubling cases.
A Boulder County inmate in September was ordered to undergo an exam after he swallowed razor blades and was deemed a suicide risk. But the state hospital said it could not admit him until February. He has since tried to hang himself in his cell and was charged with having contraband - the razor blades - in jail, according to the documents.
Another mentally ill inmate in Adams County fought with another inmate and was placed in solitary confinement during his long wait for treatment, worsening his illness and making him suicidal, the filings say.
The inmates involved are those who have been charged with crimes but have not gone to trial. Some are awaiting an evaluation to determine if they are mentally competent to aid in their defense, and others have been found incompetent and are awaiting treatment at the state hospital in an attempt to restore them to competency.
The department reached a settlement with the Disability Law Center, then known as the Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older people, in 2012 after the center sued in federal court alleging chronic delays in evaluations and treatment.
Attorneys from the law center say serious violations of the agreement are the result of “a tragic pattern of institutional indifference.”
Department of Human Services spokeswoman Alicia Caldwell declined to comment on the filing Wednesday.
But Dr. Patrick Fox, the department’s chief medical officer, told The Associated Press earlier this month that the agency has a plan to fix the problem, which he said is the result of short-staffing and an influx of inmates ordered to undergo competency evaluations. The number has more than doubled in nine years, from 681 in the 2005-06 fiscal year to 1,533 in 2014-15. Fox said the increase is straining resources.
Lawmakers recently approved a $2.7 million for the department to provide 30 more beds for jail-based restoration programs and to hire more staff, including psychologists to conduct evaluations, Fox said. “We’re working to address referrals as quickly as possible,” he said.
The law center says the state provided misleading information that kept them from learning about the problem. Attorneys want a judge to force the department to eliminate the wait list by February and appoint a monitor to ensure the settlement is enforced, among other sanctions.
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