Tulsa County District Attorney Steve Kunzweiler said Thursday that officials at the state mental health agency have demonstrated they “need legal oversight to do what they need to do” and should accept the proposed consent agreements pending in federal court.
At the press conference, Kunzweiler and Tulsa County Sheriff Vic Regalado grilled the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services for what they say is a long delay and vague response to the plight of people held in Oklahoma prisons for mental illness.
“We have people languishing in prison without ever being charged,” Regalado said. “I would argue that this is not just a potential but an actual violation of their civil rights.”
The Tulsa County Jail currently houses 40 such inmates, Regalado said. As many as 300 inmates statewide are on a waiting list for admission to the Oklahoma Forensic Center, a state psychiatric hospital in Vinita, for periods that can stretch to more than a year, according to court documents.
Anyone else reading this…
“The exact same issue I’m sharing with you today was raised with them in 2015,” Regalado said. “Their answer was, ‘It costs too much money.’ I think we stand to lose a lot of money by not spending it in the right places.”
A consent decree announced earlier this week by Attorney General Gentner Drummond and lawyers in a 2023 lawsuit against the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services will require the state to submit within 90 days a plan to address treatment delays for people who have been found mentally incompetent in state court.
The agreement was quickly scrapped by Gov. Kevin Stitt and Department of Mental Health Commissioner Allie Friesen, citing potential costs and ongoing efforts to resolve the issues.
Friesen said he has only been in the job for a few months but wants more time to assess the situation and allow the reforms to take hold.
Kunzweiler said Friesen was taking advice from “holdovers from the last two (Ministry of Mental Health) administrations,” which he said are at least partly to blame for the current situation.
The consent decree includes several conditions, such as increasing staffing and adding beds to restore capacity, and a series of penalties if the state doesn’t meet certain standards. The state has four years and three months to come into “substantial compliance,” according to a three-person oversight committee.
It’s unclear how much compliance would cost. Stitt asserted Monday it would cost at least $100 million, but some believe it would be less. The Department of Mental Health’s budget this year includes $4.1 million, and some estimate the first-year cost at just under $10 million.
In any case, advocates argue it’s cheaper than taking the case to court, where Drummond said the state would likely lose.
The consent decree only covers people awaiting competency restoration treatment, but Kunzweiler, who has family members with personal experience going through the state’s mental health system, said that’s just “the tip of the iceberg.”
He repeated his claims of a “total decline” in the system and of misplaced priorities within the ministry.
When someone mentioned the book and film “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” Kunzweiler responded, “Let me tell you something: When I went to the forensic science center, a film like ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ would have been welcomed by me.”
Oklahoma closed most of its state-run inpatient psychiatric facilities in the 1990s and switched to community-based treatment, but eventually had to reopen some programs at Vinita, including one for the incompetent.
While some argue these programs are largely inadequate, the forensic science center is adding 80 beds with funding from the American Rescue Plan Act, and it is also increasing capacity in Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
Kunzweiler said the fact that Oklahoma relies on federal funding to expand capacity shows how low a priority mental health treatment is.
Regalado and Kunzweiler said they haven’t seen much change since Friesen became mental health commissioner.
The sheriff said the Department of Mental Health first approached him over a year ago about leasing space in the Tulsa County Jail, but has yet to hear any response beyond an initial “Yay! Great idea!”
Regalado has long been at odds with the Department of Mental Health because he argues that mentally ill people should be treated in hospitals, not prisons.
He refused to participate in the department’s in-prison treatment program, which has been credited with restoring competency to about 200 people in prison.
“The words ‘prison treatment’ tell you everything you need to know about it,” Regalado said Thursday.
Tulsa World is where your story comes to life
The Tulsa World newsroom is committed to covering our region with curiosity, tenacity and depth. Our passion for telling Tulsa’s stories is unwavering: because your story is our story. We thank our subscribers for supporting local journalism. Join our subscribers with a limited-time offer: tulsaworld.com/story.
