A judge with jurisdiction over patients in a program that rehabilitates the criminally insane may balk at approving their transfer in a cost-saving move planned by the state.
The state Department of Human Services has decided not to renew its $3 million contract with the company that runs the Arkansas Partnership Program and move its 39 patients _ mental patients and substance abusers acquitted of serious crimes because they are mentally ill _ to a private facility or outpatient care when the contract expires June 30.
DHS' Behavioral Health Services Division notified the private company that runs the program for the state less than two weeks ago that the contract would not be renewed at the end of next month.
"Such an incredible lack of notice shows an indifference to the entire program and jeopardizes the success of the ... program," Circuit Judge Mary S. McGowan of Little Rock said in a letter to Rep. Jay Bradford, D-White Hall, chairman of a legislative committee that held a hearing on the proposal Tuesday.
McGowan, who said she had jurisdiction over a majority of the 39 patients in the program, said in an interview that she would be reluctant to authorize the transfers without substantial assurances of public safety.
"These people have committed some fairly heavy-hitting crimes _ murder, rape, arson," McGowan said. "All of us on the bench owe a duty to the public to make sure that ... there's as much assurance as possible that there won't be additional act."
Also, the patients themselves have a right to know where they're going to be housed, what is expected of them and what it takes for them to meet all the requirements to move to a less-restrictive environment, the judge said.
Plans are to discharge some of the patients to local communities and transfer some to another part of the State Hospital, or to a 16-bed private treatment facility at Corning run by Mid-South Health Systems of Jonesboro, a community-based mental health agency.
The Corning facility, located at a closed community hospital, could quickly expand by up to 32 beds at no cost to the state and could provide treatment for about $1 million annually, Dahlgren said.
Pat Dahlgren, director of the state behavorial health division, told a joint meeting of the House and Senate Committees on Public Health, Welfare and Labor on Tuesday that the move would save the state about $2 million a year without any drop-off of services.
But patients' family members were skeptical.
Randy and Marsha Sanders of Van Buren said their 24-year-old son Adam, diagnosed with depression at 14, languished in a local jail for a year and spent five months at the State Hospital without any improvement. Eight months into the APP program, he is now planning for college and thinking about careers, they said.
"We're extremely excited about his future, and he is, too," Randy Sanders said. "We don't want to see this interrupted. He is a different person."
The family involvement that mental health officials say is key to rehabilitation would suffer if their son were moved from Little Rock to Corning, in the far northeastern corner of the state, the Sanders' said.
Bettina Brownstein, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the State Hospital taking on the APP program could jeopardize improvements in swift evaluations of mentally ill people charged with crimes, a key stipulation in the settlement of a 2001 ACLU lawsuit against the state.
Liberty Healthcare Corp. of Bala Cynwyd, Pa., holds the contract to run the APP program out of the State Hospital.
More than two-thirds of those in the Arkansas Partnership Program were charged with violent crimes. Program Director Ronald Smith said only two of 75 people who were released from the treatment program went on to commit another violent crime.
Liberty Healthcare Corp. officials say they doubt any other facility in Arkansas is ready for those kinds of clients. But Dr. Lawrence Miller, the State Hospital's medical director, said the Corning facility had a similar success rate over the two years it has been in operation.
"We wouldn't be proposing this if we didn't think these people would receive the same level of care," said Dr. Lawrence Miller, the State Hospital's medical director.
