Cuts in Mental Health Funding Lead to Backlogs at Western State

Seattle Post Intelligencer (Seattle, WA): Years of cuts in mental health funding have created backlogs at Western State Hospital, where defendants are often sent to determine whether they are competent to stand trial. As a result, some defendants are spending more time in jail waiting for a mental health evaluation than they would if they were convicted. The funding cuts, accompanied by a methamphetamine-driven increase in the numbers of defendants needing evaluations, have forced inmates to wait an average of two months to be evaluated for competency at Western State, in Steilacoom. The state Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees Western State, sends a form letter after every evaluation referral stating that it could take at least six to eight weeks before the hospital can complete the evaluation. It costs Cowlitz County nothing to house an inmate at Western, but every day an inmate sits in the county jail costs taxpayers about $67, said Corrections Director Dan Price. "The cost is substantially higher" than that for the mentally ill because of medication and overtime for increased supervision, he said. At the low end of $67 a day, an inmate waiting 60 days to enter Western State would cost taxpayers $4,020 for housing. The Legislature appropriated $6.3 million this year to allow the hospital to open a 29-bed forensics ward, but the ward soon filled up, and the waiting list is just as long as it was before.