House Human Services weighs repeal of S.36 section on public inebriate care as state builds community crisis capacity

Representative Teresa Wood, chairing the House Human Services meeting, opened discussion of S.36’s section 4 — language that would remove the Department of Corrections as a required placement for people taken into protective custody for incapacitation related to substance use. Law enforcement, corrections, mental health and public-health officials told the committee that the state is building mobile crisis and crisis-bed capacity but that gaps and funding limits remain, and that some secure placements will likely still be needed.

The issue matters because the current statute — extended several times under a sunset provision — directs where people who are incapacitated by intoxication may be placed for safekeeping. Chief Peter Hull of the Colchester Police Department described protective custody as “used as a last resort to care for people, who are unable to be safe due to intoxication,” and said emergency departments and hospital screening are often inappropriate long-term options because they lack security and can expose health workers to assaults. Hull said police departments “are not built to hold people for long periods of time, and we do not have the facility or the staffing, to accomplish that.”

The Department of Corrections’ operational view surfaced in testimony from Al Cormier, chief of operations for the Vermont Department of Corrections, who said DOC facilities have been holding incapacitated individuals for decades and that staff perform intake medical screening, pat-downs and alcohol breath testing. Cormier said…