‘A very long time coming’: API launches new programs for mentally ill defendants

Officials at the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, the state's only psychiatric hospital, said they plan to double the facility's capacity to treat felony-level criminal defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Another program would provide treatment to people facing less serious misdemeanors, a change from the current practice of largely dismissing such charges.

New program helps address issues such as: Officials at the facility say the state's criminal justice system has a huge backlog when it comes to providing so-called “restoration” to people with mental health problems. People charged with crimes in Alaska must understand the court process or be able to meaningfully assist in their defense in order to stand trial. Otherwise, The charges against them must be dropped.

API is the only facility in Alaska for defendants with severe mental illness to receive competency restoration that meets criteria determined by a judge.

The facility has come under fire in recent years after a lack of beds meant people spent months behind bars waiting to be admitted, leaving criminal charges unclear. The hospital has only 10 so-called capacity recovery beds, and waiting lists for the program have long been months or even years long, a situation that courts and hospital officials agree is unacceptable. ing.

In a recent public announcement, forensic psychologist Dr. Christine Collins and other API executives announced a new program that will allow more felony defendants to receive competency-restoring treatment while in custody. The prison-based program will open 10 new beds for people charged with felony-level crimes, and an additional 10 beds in outpatient clinics for people charged with misdemeanors. It is said that there are plans to do so.

Before the new program was introduced, there were only 10 restored competencies Clinical Services Director Dr. Christy Becker said API's ability to serve the entire state has the lowest number of beds per capita in the nation.

Becker said defendants charged with misdemeanors will now have the opportunity to undergo an outpatient recovery program that connects them to the state's mental health court, where they will have access to additional resources and services. That's what it means.

The new outpatient program is intended to provide community supervision, legal recovery and access to additional support, rather than punishment for misdemeanors, she said.

“It acts as a bridge to get them out of the custody environment and into the community environment, and there's more scrutiny than if the charges were simply dismissed. That's the essence of these misdemeanor cases. That's what's happening right now,” Becker said.

Denying a claim is costly

Restoration is more like training than treatment. Such programs teach the basics of the clinical trial process, using various techniques such as therapy and medication to stabilize a patient's condition and then be sufficient to move forward with litigation.

In practice, raised questions nationwide It's about the money spent just to get defendants through the court process, when some argue they shouldn't even be in the criminal justice system in the first place.

researcher They say people with severe mental illness are typically not violent and are more likely to become victims of crime than commit crimes themselves. Still, the program can prevent charges against potential violent offenders from being dropped and reintegrate them back into society.

Two incidents of indiscriminate violence involving people found incompetent to stand trial in Anchorage have highlighted challenges in Alaska's competency restoration system.

Last year, a man who was deemed incompetent to stand trial after attacking two women in separate incidents was released and then stabbed another woman at the Roussac library. In 2018, a man found incompetent to prosecute at the Alaska Zoo for a series of unprovoked assaults was released from custody after the charges were dismissed, and then stabbed an employee to death.

Misdemeanor charges involving incompetence have generally been dismissed. This is because long waiting lists for services mean that defendants often spend more time in prison before entering the program than they would have spent in custody if convicted of a crime. , the judge ruled that this violated the statutory penalty. Defendant's Rights.

Currently, very few defendants found incompetent to stand trial have access to APIs for recovery services. However, even if you are admitted to a facility, success is not guaranteed. More than half of them are unable to recover to their standard level of ability. That means either their charges will be dismissed or they will be detained on civil obligations.

Over the past three years, an average of 216 defendants annually across the state were found incompetent to stand trial, according to API data. Of these, just under 20% received competency recovery services.

In Anchorage, nearly two-thirds of the 200-plus cases a year involving defendants who undergo competency evaluations are deemed incompetent to stand trial, according to three-year average fiscal year data provided by the Alaska court system. handed down the verdict. An average of 53 cases, or about a quarter, required repairs, according to state data.

Of that number, on average only 12 actually participate in the restore program's API each year. Although some cases are still on the waiting list and in some cases the defendant was found eligible before his API admission, an average of 32 of them are dismissed by the court or prosecutors, according to the data. It has been shown that

A total of 37 Anchorage defendants were successfully rehabilitated during the past three fiscal years. According to the data, 14 of them were competent after the program, but 21 still did not meet the required criteria and their charges were dismissed. Some cases involved defendants still in the program.

[Statewide data tells mixed story about crime in Alaska]

Dealing with long wait times

Backlog and long waiting list It's a nationwide problemThat's because the need for competency recovery services has increased significantly in recent decades.

In Alaska, 2019 study We identified outpatient and prison-based competency recovery programs as potential solutions. The program currently being rolled out “has been a very long time coming,” Collins said.

Melissa Ruth, a paralegal at the facility, said there are currently 50 people on API's competency recovery waiting list. Each person will spend about five months in prison until they can get a bed and start the program, she said.

If the program does not restore competency, the criminal charges against the person must be legally dismissed. Charges may also be dropped for some defendants who are not suitable for recovery, such as those who suffer from severe intellectual disabilities, Becker said.

The additional 10 beds available for competency restoration through the new program will be located within the Anchorage Correctional Facility, Becker said. Felony-level defendants who don't require hospitalization will be housed, he said, meaning people who can take medication, receive group therapy and follow jail instructions.

The outpatient program is housed in a small office on Gambel Street and is staffed by Mr. Collins and two psychiatric nursing assistants.it is Collins said he will provide competency-restoring treatment to people out on bail for only misdemeanor non-violent crimes.

Ideally, this would restore competency to people whose charges would otherwise have been dismissed, allowing them to enter court. mental health court And you can connect to services there, Becker said. Mental Health Court is a voluntary program that provides treatment plans and monitors progress for mentally ill and mentally ill defendants with the goal of managing the underlying factors that may lead to crime. .

The new program, dubbed “Journey to Resilience,” includes $850,000 from the Alaska Mental Health Trust Authority over three fiscal years to establish and oversee the program, as well as additional funding from the Alaska State Legislature to the base. It was partially funded by $800,000. According to Brian Studstill, communications director for the Alaska Department of Family and Community Services, that's how much API spends each year.

The API will track data on patient outcomes and analyze the impact of new programs on waiting lists and backlogs, Becker said.

The program officially launched a few weeks ago, but officials plan to begin intake sessions with the first few clients in the coming weeks and begin group therapy sessions by early next month, Collins said. said. Becker said the program will initially accept only a few patients, but plans are to expand to 10 people in each program within the next three to six months.

She hopes the new program will shorten Alaska's waiting list, but it's not yet clear how significant the changes will be.