The Washington State Department of Social and Health Services (DSHS) has been hit with a big fine. The agency was ordered to pay $100 million in fines for not providing sufficient mental health services to individuals with mental disorders in Washington state jails. Federal judge of the U.S. Western District of Washington Judge Marsha Pechman made the ruling Friday. She found DSHS to be in violation of a settlement agreement known as “Trueblood.” Trueblood helps people detained in city or county jails who are awaiting a competency evaluation or restoration services.
The decision reveals that there were 6,131 competency orders in 2021 compared to 8,596 in 2022, which is an increase of roughly 40%. The federal judge’s 52-page decision states that the demand for competency services has consistently increased over the past ten years. However, the total number of in-jail referrals for competency services has increased more recently, specifically between 2021 and 2022.
This case dates some years back. The decision comes after nearly a decade since the Trueblood v. DSHS lawsuit was initially filed in 2014. The huge fine represents a third of the court’s total uncollected fines. The documents also state that the court finds the payment of the fines necessary to redress DSHS’s “inexcusable” violation of Class Member’s constitutional rights from “at least September 2022 through 2023.”
The court decision detailed why DSHS violated the Class Member’s constitutional rights:
DSHS failed to take reasonable steps to address the bed shortage at WSH and longer wait times for Class Members. There are three root failures: (1) the failure to prepare for and react swiftly to the rise in demand for competency services and Civil Conversion orders; (2) the decision to continue prioritizing Civil Conversion patients over Class Members and the delay in stopping new admissions; and (3) the decision not to delay ward closures at WSH.
Judge Pechman wrote the state was responsible for creating a bed shortage by shutting down wards at Western State Hospital that housed patients committed through the court system.
The state seems to have been attempting to increase during the period it was to show improvement. Part of the state’s non-compliance was caused by the shutdown of wards at Western State Hospital while a new 350-bed hospital was being built. However, the judge was not convinced. Pechman deemed this as “poor planning for the laudable goal of building a new hospital.”
“The Court has not sat idly by during this time. The Court has twice found DSHS in contempt of the Permanent Injunction, which has led to the imposition of daily fines calculated as to each Trueblood Class Member who does not receive timely competency services,” the court ruling read.
