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    • Oklahoma County Jail Trust Orders Prisoners Out of State, Demands Payment
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    Oklahoma County Jail Trust Orders Prisoners Out of State, Demands Payment

    Umito Posted on

    Oklahoma County Jail CEO Brandi Garner is ending an agreement with the state’s mental health department, citing a litany of failures in how it handles inmates deemed mentally incompetent.

    Among the failures Garner cited was a licensed health care provider working for the department who said he learned how to do his job from Google. The state psychologist also counseled inmates through “bean holes” — slits in prison cell doors — in “blatant disregard” of their “intensive treatment needs,” Garner said.

    He has been fired from the county jail and Garner is demanding that inmates be removed from the jail for their own good. It also demands payment for housing and medical care for them, since they were detained but found incompetent to stand trial.

    Garner made the requests in a letter sent to the psychologist’s employer, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, headed by Commissioner Allie Friesen.

    More: Oklahoma officials settle high-profile federal mental health lawsuit

    OK County Jail consultant: Transcripts show ‘continued failures’ by state mental health department

    Garner also dissolved the memorandum of understanding between the county jail trust, formally the Criminal Justice Authority, and the department.

    Garner raised concerns in the letter, approved this week by the trust, after Crystal Hernandez, a prison consultant, presented administrators with what appeared to be damning evidence of a health provider’s “continued failures.” approved working for the department.

    Hernandez pointed to transcripts of criminal court testimony that she said show:

    • “The failures of the so-called prison skills program in which the sole provider said he learned to do his job through Google.”
    • “That he had less than 12 hours of training.”
    • “That he performs most of his services, at most, through bean holes, shouting through sections of doors.”
    • “(That the provider’s practices) do not meet any standard of care related to forensic skills restoration services.”

    Neither Friesen nor a department spokesperson responded to inquiries from The Oklahoman.

    What is “skills restoration”?

    Garner’s complaints concern “restoration of skills” ordered by a judge for defendants found incompetent to stand trial.

    Rehabilitation involves “mental health treatment and medications that attempt to restore the defendant to legal competence…provided on an outpatient basis in the community, in jail, or in a mental health facility,” according to the National Center for State Courts.

    The department “has the discretion to transfer these prisoners to its forensic center. However, for reasons known only to the (department), these prisoners are often left in (the prison),” Garner said in the letter that the trust provided to The Oklahoman.

    The department, she wrote, “attempted to implement prison competency restoration without the support of peer-reviewed studies and without the required forensic expertise.”

    Oklahoma County Jail CEO: State psychologist lacked training, skills to work in the jail

    Garner pointed to court transcripts, which she said show that the state psychologist, employed by the department to work at the prison under the memorandum of understanding, “lacked the training and skills necessary to provide the restoration of skills.

    Additionally, the psychologist “…lacked supervision by a qualified forensic physician (and worked without) the direct services of a forensic psychiatrist,” she wrote.

    The provider was supposed to meet with inmates weekly, but did so approximately every 10 days, with visits lasting as little as 10 minutes and no more than 45.

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    “These visits took place in the common area of ​​the cell module, at a table, if there were sufficient detention staff available. Otherwise, the visit took place entirely through the closed cell door.” , wrote Garner, that is to say through a slit in a cell. door commonly called the “beanhole”.

    Hernandez told the trust: “We have no choice but to say this is not acceptable, this is not acceptable, for our residents in our prison, our individuals who deserve quality care. quality in a timely manner and which do not violate their rights.”

    Oklahoma County Jail Trust Chairman Joe Allbaugh: ‘Enough is enough’

    Jail Trust President Joe Allbaugh was furious: “And we operate the largest mental health facility in the state of Oklahoma?”

    Hernández: “Absolutely.”

    Allbaugh: “What does the Department of Mental Health do in its daily work?

    Hernandez: “I can’t answer that question, sir. Prisons are not equipped to be a therapeutic environment. They never have been. They never should be. We have individuals serving sentences longer while waiting to be reinstated than if they had simply been convicted or arrested. This is unacceptable.

    Allbaugh: “And they can’t show up to do their job?…I’m sorry, that’s a rhetorical question. I’m just – enough is enough!”

    Allbaugh spoke of one prisoner who was held for about 1,300 days — or nearly four years — while awaiting competency restoration services.

    Hernandez said, “Individuals deserve quality care, they deserve timely care, so they can make rational decisions about their own lives and the things they agree to. We shouldn’t have mentally ill people in prison in the first place. But here we are. »

    The state Department of Mental Health has a history of alleged failures to restore the competence of defendants

    The county’s problems with the state Department of Mental Health came just days before Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the settlement of federal class action over similar poor practices by the departmentand its approval by Governor Kevin Stitt and the department.

    The four members Contingency Review Boardchaired by Stitt, who handles major interstate dispute settlements when the Legislature is not in session, is expected to consider the agreement in January.

    The lawsuit alleged that the department “violated certain defendants’ pretrial due process rights by failing to provide court-ordered competency restoration services in a timely manner,” the AG’s office said in a press release. “Some inmates found incompetent to stand trial have evaded accountability in county jails for more than a year, resulting in a delay in justice for crime victims.

    “The proposed consent decree presents a strategic plan for justice to be administered in a timely manner by improving (the department’s) food services.”

    Staff Writer Richard Mize covers Oklahoma County government and the city of Edmond. He previously covered housing, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com, starting in 1999. Contact him at [email protected]. You can support Richard’s work and that of his colleagues by purchasing a digital subscription to The Oklahoman. Currently you can get 6 months of subscriber-only access for $1.

    (This story has been updated to meet our standards).

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