Thurston County has made a commitment to reduce the number of people experiencing mental illness at its county jail.
Last Tuesday, the Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution to join the Stepping Up Initiative during its regular meeting. This nationwide program connects hundreds of counties and provides resources to further its goal.
People in jails across the country are three to six times more likely to have a serious mental illness than the general population, said Leah Landon, Thurston County's Criminal Justice Regional Program Manager, in a news release. She said such people often have co-occurring substance use disorders.
"In addition to longer stays in jail, those who are mentally ill tend to have higher rates of recidivism," Landon said. "Without targeted treatment and services, these individuals often cycle through the criminal justice system.
"By joining the Stepping Up Initiative, we are taking another step towards breaking that cycle."
At least 563 counties, including 13 in Washington, have joined the initiative, according to the county release. It was founded in 2015 by the National Association of Counties, the Council of State Governments and the American Psychiatric Association Foundation.
Landon told the board that joining the initiative will not cost the county any money. "This is really just us formalizing our commitment to address this crisis in our community," Landon said.
The county says the initiative will help it collect and review information, examine treatment and service capacity, and identify policy and funding barriers.
From there, the county aims to develop a plan with measurable outcomes. According to the release, the county will keep track of jail bookings, jail length of stay, connections to treatment and recidivism to determine success.
"Together our law and justice partners will work to accurately measure and address those four key measures," Landon said. "We will be able to share that information and work to provide more resources and treatment options for our community."
To advance this plan, the county says the initiative will help implement evidence-based approaches and create a process to track data.
Prior to the vote, Commissioner Tye Menser voiced his excitement for the initiative. He called the effort a "timely and very important" undertaking.
"We looked at this in 2019 and we really didn't have the staffing or capacity institutionally to take advantage of it," Menser said. "Our willingness to do this now is leveraging the position we created that Leah (Landon) holds. That really gives us the opportunity to take advantage of this."
Menser said he pulled statistics in 2018 that showed about 45% of the county's jail population had a mental health diagnosis. Since then, he said that number has surpassed 60%.
However, he said part of the reason that percentage increased was because the county has had success keeping low-level offenders out of custody in recent years.
Still, he said he doesn't think the county is doing a good enough job on the key metrics that the initiative measures.
Marilyn Roberts, director of operations for the Thurston and Mason counties branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, expressed her support for the initiative to the county board.
Roberts said she has wanted the initiative in Thurston County since 2015. She thanked county officials for seeing it through.
"This is a big deal and I just want to say thank you for doing whatever you can to help make this work," Roberts said. "We know the behavioral health crisis is not new and it's not going away."
