Panel: Jails can't be 'dumping ground' in a mental health crisis
Panelists discuss warrantless apprehension of people in mental health crisis
ANN MARIE BUSH/THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL
Audience members listen Thursday as panelists speak about warrantless apprehension of people in a mental health crisis.
By Ann Marie Bush
Mental health advocates, law enforcement officers and hospital representatives spent two hours Thursday discussing warrantless apprehension of people who are in a mental health crisis.
About 40 people, including officers from the Topeka Police Department, Shawnee County Sheriff’s Office, Lawrence, Sedgwick County and Kansas City, Kan., gathered in a training room at the Law Enforcement Center from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. for the first Topeka/Shawnee County Crisis Intervention Team roundtable discussion.
“I’m pleased,” said Topeka police Capt. Bill Cochran, who helped organized the event. “We had great panelists.”
Often, jails and hospitals become a “dumping ground” for people who need mental health care, Cochran said. CIT plans to host future roundtables to discuss other mental health issues, he said.
Panelists for Thursday’s presentation included Rick Cagen, executive director of NAMI Kansas; Cindy Hasvold, an emergency department RN case manager for Stormont-Vail Health Care; Shawn Kimble, an officer with TPD; Darren Root, Shawnee County assistant district attorney; Karen Stafford, crisis and intake manager for Valeo Behavioral Health Care; and Bill Rein, chief counsel with the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services.
Rein, who helped write Kansas’ mental health law in 1986 and the Mental Health Reform Act of 1990, talked about the Texas mental health law for emergency detention and how it differs slightly from the Kansas statute for emergency detention.
“The issues are extremely difficult,” Rein said of mental health and the law.
Root also spoke about the similarities and differences of the two laws. He said while the wording is different, the “purpose is the same.”
The Kansas statute addresses care and treatment for mentally ill people and the investigation, emergency detention, and authority and duty of law enforcement officers.
The Kansas statute states, “Any law enforcement officer who has a reasonable belief formed upon investigation that a person is a mentally ill person and because of such person’s mental illness is likely to cause harm to self or others if allowed to remain at liberty may take the person into custody without a warrant.”
The Texas law states, “A peace officer, without a warrant, may take a person into custody if the officer has reason to believe and does believe that the person is mentally ill and because of that mental illness there is a substantial risk of serious harm to the person or to others unless the person is immediately restrained.”
Audience members and panelists discussed how the wording “harm to self” is vague and could be interpreted differently by agencies across the state. Agencies also can interrupt the law differently.
Amy Campbell, with the Mental Health Coalition of Kansas, said, “We can change the words, but nothing will change on the ground.”
Several audience members and panelists emphasized that Kansas needs more resources. Some also said a lot of people are being sent to the state hospital when they could be better served in a less-restricted local treatment facility or intermediate program.
“I think the law works pretty well,” Root said. “It comes down to resources.”
