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Committee approves bill excluding jail time from court-ordered inpatient treatment day counts
Summary
Lawmakers voted unanimously to recommend House Bill 2944, which prevents time spent in jail or prison from being counted toward the number of inpatient treatment days available under court‑ordered treatment.
The committee voted to give House Bill 2944 a due-pass recommendation after testimony from judges, treatment advocates and family members describing how jail time can consume court-ordered inpatient treatment days.
The bill would exclude days an individual spends in jail or prison when computing the number of inpatient treatment days available under a court-ordered treatment order. Testimony from former judge Jim McDougall and advocates with the Association for the Chronically Mentally Ill (Mad Moms) described situations in which detained individuals received only limited medication in jail and did not receive the same intensive inpatient psychiatric treatment contemplated by the civil treatment statute.
Judge McDougall said jail treatment is not equivalent to hospital inpatient care and described the statutory limit on inpatient days; advocates described families who lost access to hospital care because jail days had been counted against their allotted inpatient days. "To consider the treatment they get while in jail as inpatient treatment is laughable," McDougall said.
The committee approved the bill on a roll call; the clerk recorded a unanimous vote in committee (the record lists 12 ayes, 0 nays). The bill now moves on with a due-pass recommendation.
