By Nori Leybengrub
The Virginian-Pilot
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — A new pod in the Virginia Beach Correctional Center will be dedicated to inmates whom the court decides need mental health restoration services before they stand trial for their alleged crimes.
State behavioral health and Virginia Beach Correctional Center officials believe the new space — the second ever to be built in a Virginia jail — will speed up the court process for criminal defendants suffering from mental illness by reducing wait times for treatment.
The head of the city’s public defenders, Cal Bain, said mental competency is a question that arises when he notices his clients speak incoherently or talk to him about irrelevant subjects.
To Bain, that means the client may be in a state of mind in which they are unable to understand the court process or assist in their defense.
A defense attorney, in agreement with prosecutors, then asks a local psychiatrist to evaluate the inmate — whether they understand the legal proceedings against them or can assist in their defense. If the answer’s no, then a judge will order that the person receive psychiatric treatment to be restored to competency.
Before the Virginia Beach jail built the in-house restoration pod, inmates had to wait upwards of a month in jail to be transferred to Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg — the closest of eight state-run psychiatric hospitals.
Virginia Beach sheriff’s deputies have transported over 40 inmates to the hospital since January.
The state psychiatric hospital, “they’re always full,” said Sgt. Brandon Mullen, a mental health liaison who will be working in the new pod alongside clinicians from the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (VDHDS) and a nurse practitioner who will administer medications.
He said over 95% of Eastern State’s beds are filled by patients from jails and prisons, reducing the available space for people experiencing a mental health crisis outside of the justice system.
When no beds are available, inmates are stuck in local jails, waiting to receive treatment before their cases can proceed. And deputies, Mullen said, don’t have the proper training or credentials to treat them.
Often inmates who need their competency restored are accused of petty crimes, Mullen said, such as trespassing or stealing from a convenience store.
Incarceration can be the first time they receive mental health services, he said, and wait times at the psychiatric hospital mean these patients are staying in jail weeks or months longer than the sentences for their alleged crimes.
Not all inmates who require mental competency restoration can be served in the restoration pod, according to jail officials. Cases in which a person is contemplating suicide or refusing to take medications may still need to be referred to Eastern State.
“It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s a start,” said Virginia Beach Commonwealth’s Attorney Colin Stolle. While the new program doesn’t fill every gap in the system, it streamlines and speeds up the process of competency restoration to benefit not just criminal defendants, but victims and witnesses, too, he said.
Behavioral health and justice initiatives manager Kristin Hudacek and her colleagues at VDHDS have been working on expanding access to mental health and restoration services inside jails for years.
Hudacek said that criminal defendants who are granted a bond can access psychiatric treatment through the Virginia Beach Community Services Board, and those with the most urgent mental health needs require treatment in state hospitals.
But in most jails there is a gap for inmates with midlevel treatment needs, such as substance abuse recovery, serious mental illness or people returning from a hospital post-treatment.
In May, Hudacek’s team helped establish the state’s first restoration pod in Hopewell’s Riverside Regional Jail. The pod houses 16 inmates. The Arlington County Jail will open its first restoration pod in September.
Hudacek said one of the greatest hurdles to implementing competency services in local jails is communication across groups — the sheriff’s office, behavioral health specialists, attorneys — who often work in their own silos. In this case, they came together to pilot a solution.
During a Thursday afternoon tour of the pod, Sheriff Rocky Holcomb said that a $1.8 million VDHDS grant covers the majority of the costs of renovation and running the restoration pod.
It features a room for one-on-one therapy sessions, office space for behavioral and mental health specialists, and a room for group therapy sessions. Large blue seats gathered around tables marked with boards for chess and checkers fill the main floor, which is surrounded by enough cells to board 26 inmates.
The pod will officially open to its first four residents Aug. 17, taking inmates off of the correctional center’s long wait list for an Eastern State hospital bed.
According to a spokesperson with the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office, the pod will begin with housing inmates charged with nonviolent offenses only, and later grow to include those charged with violent offenses.
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