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    • Oklahoma County Jail Trust orders state prisoners out and demands payment
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    Oklahoma County Jail Trust orders state prisoners out and demands payment

    Online Niel Posted on

    Oklahoma County Jail CEO Brandi Garner is terminating an agreement with the state Department of Mental Health, citing a series of failures in how it handles inmates deemed mentally incompetent.

    Among the failures cited by Garner was a licensed health care provider working for the department who said he learned how to do his job from Google. The state psychologist also counseled inmates through “bean holes” — the slits in prison cell doors — in “blatant disregard” for their “intensive treatment needs,” Garner said.

    He has been fired from his job at the county jail, and Garner is demanding that the inmates be released from the jail for their own good. She is also asking for housing payments and medical treatment because they were detained but found incompetent to stand trial.

    Garner made the requests in a letter sent to the psychologist’s employer, the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, headed by Commissioner Allie Friesen.

    More: Oklahoma officials settle landmark federal mental health lawsuit

    OK County jail consultant: Transcripts show ‘continued failures’ of state mental health department

    Garner also dissolved the memorandum of understanding between the county jail trust, formally the Criminal Justice Authority, and the department.

    Garner outlined her concerns in the letter, approved this week by the trust, after Crystal Hernandez, a prison consultant, presented administrators with what appeared to be damning evidence of “continued failures” by a licensed health care provider working for the department.

    Hernandez pointed to transcripts of criminal court testimony that he said show:

    • “Failures of purported prison-based skills program in which sole provider said he learned to do his job through Google.”
    • “That he had less than 12 hours of training.”
    • “That he does most of his services, at most, through bean holes screaming through sections of doors.”
    • “(That the provider’s practices) do not meet any standard of care related to forensic rehabilitation services.”

    Neither Friesen nor a department spokesman responded to questions from The Oklahoman.

    What is ‘restoring skills’?

    Garner’s complaints have to do with “restoring skills” ordered by a judge for defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial.

    Restoration involves “mental health treatment and medication that attempts to restore the defendant to legal competency . . . provided on an outpatient basis in the community, in prison, or in a mental health facility.” according to the National Center for State Courts.

    The department “is at liberty to transfer such prisoners to its forensic facility. However, for reasons known only to the (department), such prisoners are often left in the (jail),” Garner said in the letter the trust provided to him. The Oklahoman.

    The department, she wrote, “attempted to implement prison-based skills restoration without the support of peer-reviewed studies and without the necessary forensic expertise.”

    Oklahoma County Jail CEO: State psychologist lacked training and skills to work in jail

    Garner pointed to court transcripts, which she said showed the state psychologist hired by the department to work at the jail under the memorandum of understanding “lacked the training and skills to provide competency restoration.”

    Moreover, the psychologist, “… did not have the supervision of a qualified forensic provider (and was not working without) direct services from any forensic psychiatrist,” she wrote.

    The provider was supposed to meet with the inmates weekly, but did so every 10 days, with visits lasting up to 10 minutes and no more than 45 minutes.

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    “These visits took place in the common area of ​​the cell at a table, if sufficient detention staff were available. If it was not, the visit was conducted entirely through the closed cell door,” Garner wrote, meaning through a slot in a cell. door commonly called the “bean hole”.

    Hernandez told the trust: “We have no alternative but to say this is not okay, this is not acceptable, for our residents in our prison, our individuals who deserve timely, quality care that does not violate their rights “.

    Oklahoma County Jail Trust President Joe Allbaugh: ‘Enough is Enough’

    Prison Trust President Joe Allbaugh was steamed: “And we operate the largest mental health facility in the state of Oklahoma?”

    Hernandez: “Absolutely.”

    Allbaugh: “What does the Department of Mental Health do in their daily work?”

    Hernandez: “I can’t answer that, sir. Prisons are not equipped to be a therapeutic environment. They never have been. They never should be. We have individuals serving longer sentences awaiting restoration than if they were been convicted or taken. an unacceptable request”.

    Allbaugh: “And they can’t show up to do their jobs?… Sorry, that’s a rhetorical question. I’m just—that’s enough!”

    Allbaugh told of one prisoner who was held for about 1,300 days — nearly four years — while waiting for rehabilitative services.

    Hernandez said, “People deserve quality care, they deserve timely care so they can make rational decisions about their own lives and the things they agree with. First of all, we shouldn’t have mentally ill people in prison. But here we are.”

    State Department of Mental Health Has History of Alleged Failures to Restore Defendant’s Competency

    The county’s problems with the state Department of Mental Health came just days before Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced that settlement of a federal class action lawsuit over similar improper practices by the departmentand its approval by Gov. Kevin Stitt and the dept.

    The four members Contingency Review Boardchaired by Stitt, who takes over major state process solutions when the Legislature is not in session, is expected to consider the deal in January.

    The suit alleged that the department “violated the due process rights of some defendants before trial by failing to provide timely court-ordered competency restoration services,” the AG’s office said in a news release. “Some inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial have languished in county jails for more than a year, resulting in delayed justice for crime victims.

    “The proposed consent decree outlines a strategic plan for the timely administration of justice by improving the (department’s) restorative services.”

    Writer Richard Mize covers Oklahoma County government and the city of Edmond. He previously covered housing, commercial real estate and related topics for the newspaper and Oklahoman.com beginning in 1999. Contact him at [email protected]. You can support Richard’s work and that of his colleagues by purchasing a digital subscription to The Oklahoman. Right now, you can get it 6 months of subscriber-only access for $1.

    (This story has been updated to meet our standards).

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