(July 9, 2015) Jails and prisons across the country have become de facto psychiatric hospitals. But in Colorado corrections officials are taking steps to address the issue by enrolling inmates in Medicaid in the hopes that coordinating continued mental health treatment upon release will lower the likelihood of them returning (“Breaking the Cycle,” Colorado Springs Independent, July 8).
"We think there's a very, very significant mental health issue in the jail, we're working on alternatives to address that," said Sheriff Bill Elder.
Elder recognizes that when mentally ill inmates are released without any system in place to ensure that they continue treatment, they quickly decompensate, re-offend and are taken back to jail.
So next month his jail will partner with the Department of Human Services and hire three employees to assist exiting inmates with enrollment in government programs for which they qualify, from food stamps to GED classes, job placement services and Medicaid.
"Because of the way the state prison system works, [the Department of Corrections] knows when an inmate is coming up for parole and begins the Medicaid application process 90-180 days before parole to ensure that everything is in place the moment the inmate steps outside the DOC facility," explains Marc Williams, spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing,
Williams adds that his office has been reaching out to "county jails, sheriff's offices and county human service offices" to provide training and advice on how to partner if they offer the same services. His department considers it a "best practice" to connect exiting inmates with workers who can enroll them in Medicaid in jail.
The program has already seen success in other counties.
Mark Techmeyer, with the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, said their county jail has offered Medicaid enrollment to inmates for the past four years.
"We believe that the program is very successful," Techmeyer said. "We believe also that it is reducing the recidivism rate."
To be sure, programs like this are a positive step forward. But the odds are still 4.1 to 1 that a person with mental illness living in Colorado will be placed behind bars rather than in a public psychiatric bed.
Colorado needs to make better use of its civil commitment laws to provide more timely treatment to individuals in need of treatment for symptoms of psychiatric crisis before they enter the corrections system in the first place.
Read the Treatment Advocacy Center report “The Treatment of Persons with Mental Illness in Prisons and Jails” to learn more.
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