Lincoln County officials, mental health providers and state lawmakers gathered at the OSU Extension office July 10 to discuss strengthening mental health care for inmates and improving their transition to community treatment after release.
The meeting centered on the jail’s new partnership with Redemption Correctional Healthcare Solutions, which recently replaced Turn Key as its medical and psychiatric provider. Nick Taylor, Redemption’s director of psychiatry and a boardcertified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, told attendees he has already evaluated every inmate currently housed at the jail, prescribed medication when appropriate and begun follow-up care.
Taylor said new inmates are evaluated after they are booked, then monitored throughout their incarceration. Redemption also has a nurse at the jail from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, while Taylor remains available around the clock.
Speaking to the group, Taylor said he tries to make psychiatric care as accessible as possible while inmates are in custody.
“It doesn’t matter how much money you have or what your commissary is,” he said. “It’s free to be seen by psych.”
Taylor said he uses a medication list tailored to correctional settings, avoiding heavily sedating medications and others that are commonly hoarded, traded or misused inside jails.
He also generally sends inmates out with medication and referrals to community providers so they can continue treatment after release. However, he said many stop taking their medication, return to the same circumstances and eventually come back to jail.
“Unfortunately, what I see most of the time is nine times out of 10, they just go right back around the streets and start doing the stuff they were doing before,”Taylor said. “Then they end up getting arrested again, coming back into jail, treat them again, and it’s just a cycle over and over and over again.”
Representatives from the Iowa Tribe’s mobile mental health unit, Red Rock Behavioral Health Services,ProjectSAFEand other local organizations attended to hear from Taylor and discuss how they could better coordinate services.
Participants discussed improving transportation, peer support, case management and other services that could help people remain in treatment after returning to the community. Iowa Tribe representatives discussed bringing the tribe’s mobile mental health unit to Chandler once a week, allowing Nativeandnon-Nativeresidents to access care without traveling outside the area.
Sheriff Kevin Garrett said untreated mental illness andsubstanceusehave become major concerns for the jail and law enforcement agencies throughout the county.
“My goal is to have zero in the jail system,” Garrett said. “It would be nice not to, but since we do, we need to figure out a way to take better care and get them on the medications if we can.”
Garrett said law enforcement officers are regularly called to situations involving people experiencing mental health crises, including some who have not committed a crime and cannot be treated by Taylor because they have not been incarcerated.
He said closer coordination among the jail, outside providers and state officials could help people continue treatment and reduce repeated incarceration.
“We’ve got to figure out a way to work together,” Garrett said. “We need to figure out a way to make it work.”