Virginia proposal funds trained ‘special conservators of the peace’ to ease crisis holds and jail-to-hospital transfers

Commissioner Nelson Smith, head of the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Resources on Friday that the agency’s FY‑25 and FY‑26 budget requests include new spending to reduce criminalization of mental illness and shorten long custody waits.

Smith said the governor’s biennial package would add $53,500,000 in fiscal 2025 and $56,400,000 in fiscal 2026 to advance the administration’s Right Help Right Now plan, including a proposal to fund specially trained “special conservators of the peace,” or S‑COPS, who would maintain custody and support patients while they await inpatient beds. “People in crisis are still being criminalized for their mental illness. In many cases, as you know, they’re handcuffed to beds for many hours,” Smith said.

The nut of the proposal is to place trauma‑informed, crisis‑intervention trained S‑COPS in emergency settings and on transport so custody transfers do not rely solely on uniformed law enforcement. Smith told the committee a $35,200,000 item in the governor’s budget would let the state expand the S‑COPS model to regions 1, 2, 4 and 5 and support…