Relates to treatment plans for certain inmates who are receiving mental health services at or prior to the time of their anticipated release date

1 Co-sponsor

• Patrick M. Gallivan

BILL NUMBER:S7818

Title of bill

An act to amend the correction law and the mental hygiene law, in relation to treatment plans for certain inmates who are receiving mental health services at or prior to the time of their anticipated release date

Purpose

To provide mental health discharge planning for inmates who will be released on community supervision and to authorize regional community supervision directors to initiate involuntary commitment proceedings under the mental hygiene law.

Summary of provisions

Section 1 adds a new subdivision 4 to section 404 of the correction law. Section 2 amends subdivision 4 of section 9.27 of the mental hygiene law. Section 3 provides for an effective date.

Justification

On June 1, 2014, nine days after being released from prison without mental health medications or any contact with a community mental health care provider, a mentally ill man stabbed two children in an elevator in Brooklyn, killing one of them, a six year old boy. The man's parole officer informed her supervisors that she believed him to be dangerous and thought he should be sent to a mental hospital.

While most mentally ill people are not violent, no inmate who receives mental health treatment while in prison should be released to the streets without a plan for continuity of care. People who have stabilized in prison should not destabilize in the community for lack of mental health care. The bill provides that inmates on the mental health caseload, or who refuse services but are mentally ill, receive mental health discharge planning and, if necessary, appointments with psychiatrists or other prescribing mental health professionals in the community to ensure that medication orders do not lapse and that the released individuals remain under appropriate medical supervision.

Additionally, it is important that regional community supervision directors be authorized to act quickly and independently in situations in which their field officers believe a supervisee to be in need of hospitalization. Currently parole officers can initiate petitions for assisted outpatient treatment under Kendra's Law but may not initiate a petition for involuntary commitment. This bill would clarify that the regional director of community supervision has standing to initiate such proceedings.

Legislative history

This is a new bill.

Fiscal implications

Minimal.

Local fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

This act shall take effect sixty days after it shall have become law.