HASTINGS -- The availability of mental health workers and the distance from families could be obstacles to locating a potential $41 million mental health and substance treatment center for inmates in Hastings, senators were told Wednesday at a hearing there.
If the Legislature wants to push the treatment center, it will have to convinceÌýofficials in the Department of Correctional Services and the Department of Health and Human Services, who have some concerns about the Hastings location.
The bill (LB999) that prompted the hearing was introduced in 2014 by Omaha Sen. Brad Ashford. It called for the state to consider the feasibility ofÌýa Hastings Behavioral Health Treatment Center, with 200 beds to treat mental illness and substance abuse of maximum and minimum security male inmates who are within 12 to 18 months of the end of their sentences.
The treatment center is intended to be located in a renovated or new building on the Hastings Regional Center campus. It would be a collaboration between the departments of Corrections and Health and Human Services.
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Corrections Director Scott Frakes said in written testimony delivered by Corrections research director Jeffry Beaty that he wasn’t convinced of the immediate need for the facility. Frakes, who started his job in February,Ìýsaid heÌýis still in the process of assessing inmates’ mental health needs.
Frakes announced Tuesday the appointment of a new chief of psychiatry, Dr. Martin Wetzel, and new behavioral health administrator Lisa Jones.
A bill (LB605) introduced by Omaha Sen. Heath Mello and passed in the 2015 session is expected to relieve some crowding in the prisons in the next three to five years, and it is hoped it willÌýprovide flexibility in the prisons that would help get mental health treatment to the highest-risk inmates, Frakes said.
“I am concerned (the Hastings) project could take attention from other needs within the department, such as additional community custody beds in Lincoln or Omaha,†Frakes said.
And he didn’t particularly like the idea of isolating the population of mentally ill inmates in one facility. Mental and physical health and other programming needs must be integrated, he said.
But even with those issues, Frakes said he supported the concept and was willing to discuss it further.
There may be more cost-effective and efficient places for a treatment center closer to where inmates are discharging from prison, said Sheri Dawson, director of the division of behavioral health in the Department of Health and Human Services.Ìý
And sight and sound barriers would have to be constructed between inmates and youth at the regional center site who are receiving substance abuse treatment, Dawson said. That could limit options and raise costs.
Members of the Judiciary, Appropriations and Health and Human Services Committee heard testimony from Hastings city and hospital officials, the Nebraska behavioral health association and from two out of the state ombudsman’s office.
Deputy Ombudsman Jerall Moreland said crowded prisons affect not only mental health care provided to inmates but also limit available programming options.
There could be as many as 2,000 inmates in Nebraska prisons who have some form of mental illness, from mild to severe.
“We know that the department is not providing therapeutic services for anywhere near that many inmates,†he said.
Instead, many are being segregated from the general population for breaking rules, behaving bizarrely or being unstable. But it is highly unlikely that mentally ill inmates in segregation cells would be stabilized enough to make the transition to the mental health unit at Lincoln Correctional Center, he said.
Lincoln Correctional Center created a mental health unit with about 144 beds, but the needs of the unit are much higher than planned for by the department, Moreland said. If mental health beds are expanded there, it would take away from beds for those who have other programming needs.
Moreland said many inmates are being released from Nebraska prisons with post traumatic stress syndrome they developed in prison and cannot adjust to society after release. A treatment center like the one proposed could identify and treat those inmates before they are released, and reduce the number returning to prison, he said.
Judiciary Committee Chairman Les Seiler of Hastings said even though he has some concerns about the potential available mental health workforce – around 290 workers could be needed -- that problem could be solved with collaboration with the University of Nebraska Medical Center.
“Hastings is kind of an easy sell. It really is,†he said.
There will be a second hearing in Omaha Sept. 1 to discuss any potential role the medical center could play.