By Patty Hastings
The Columbian
VANCOUVER, Wash. — Soon, jail inmates with mental health issues won’t have to wait so long to get evaluated by a psychologist.
The goal put in place by the state Legislature is to complete evaluations in seven days or less. To help make that happen, the state Department of Social and Health Services is recruiting a forensic evaluator who will work full time in Vancouver determining whether defendants are mentally fit to stand trial.
Currently, psychologists at Western State Hospital in Lakewood drive 126 miles to the Clark County Jail to evaluate inmates. It’s a time-consuming and expensive process, Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Tony Golik said. On average, according to DSHS, an inmate waits 21 days to get evaluated, during which court proceedings are put on hold until the evaluation results become available.
“It’s been frustrating with Western not having the resources to get these evaluations done quickly,” Golik said.
Courts have to order competency evaluations when it’s questionable whether a defendant understands the charges against them and can assist in their own defense. Each evaluation takes at least a couple of hours for the psychologist to complete. A defendant found to be competent can stand trial. A defendant found incompetent is sent to Western State for treatment, which can include therapy, medication and education about court proceedings.
About 20 percent or $61.7 million of Western State’s budget in the 2011-2013 biennium went to providing competency services to the court, according to a report from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee. The report was released last year after the legislature passed a bill in 2012 addressing the timeliness of competency services. The report points out that despite outpatient referrals outpacing inpatient referrals, the approach to doing competency evaluations didn’t change after the bill became law. Psychologists still worked only at Western State Hospital, or Eastern State Hospital in Spokane, or at a satellite office in Seattle, and had to travel from those offices to see patients.
To remedy the lag in getting evaluations completed, county courts worked to put together a panel of local experts who — in addition to their day jobs — would be hired out to perform competency exams. It seemed to be the only route, Golik said — until they got the news last month that there would be a full-time local forensic evaluator.
“Having an expert located here in Clark County doing these evaluations is really the optimal situation,” Golik said.
Vancouver is among the first places slated to get a forensic evaluator. Western State is hiring 10 psychologists around the state, aiming to place them in Everett, Yakima and the Tri-Cities, and more locations to be determined by need.
“Based on need we may end up locating more in Southwest Washington,” said Victoria Robertson, deputy assistant secretary for DSHS.
One of our challenges is that no Washington state colleges teach forensic psychology, making it difficult to find the right people, Robertson said.
Senate bill 5889, which Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law last month, says that competency evaluations should be competed in seven days or less, and “admission for restoration” — that is, treatment — should also occur within seven days or less.
It’s supposed to speed up the process without compromising the quality of the examinations.
“With the decision comes more funding and more interest and more ability to get the work done,” Robertson said.
She said the forensic evaluator in Vancouver will mostly likely work out of a state office building.