SUBSCRIBE NOW

Enjoy all your local news and sports for less than 6¢ per day.

Subscribe Now

Llano County clears path for mental health treatment over jail time

Llano County First Assistant Attorney Matt Rienstra (left) explains the fine points of a new contract between the county and the Hill Country Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Centers to provide mental health evaluations for people arrested in the county. Pictured with him is Llano County Attorney Dwain Rogers. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey

Llano County judges soon will have the option to recommend mental health evaluations of suspects, which could lead to treatment rather than jail time.

The Llano County Commissioners Court on June 10 unanimously approved a contract with the Hill Country Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Centers to provide the evaluations. The deal won’t be finalized, however, until the agency agrees. 

Under the contract, a certified mental health professional would evaluate a suspect at the recommendation of a Llano County judge. Each evaluation would cost $30.

The policy pertains to those arrested in Llano County on Class B misdemeanors or higher, including felonies.

Llano County Attorney Dwain Rogers said the county has been pursuing such an arrangement for years.

“If someone has been brought into the jail or magistrated, the magistrate (overseeing judge) can recommend a mental health evaluation for that individual, and we need a service provider to do that,” he said. “Hopefully, if the individual is indicated to require mental health services, they can start moving down that path rather than the incarceration path.”

While this policy is new for Llano County, it is not a novel idea in Texas. Mental health evaluations for suspects has been on the books since the Texas Legislature added Article 16.22 to the state Code of Criminal Procedure in 1993. The law creates an avenue for conducting mental health assessments of suspects, which can keep them out of jails and get them necessary treatment. 

“It’s helpful for us to provide additional mental health services for our clients in the criminal justice system, and the hope is to create more attention to that,” said Chris Sanders, a mental health caseworker for the North Hill Country Public Defender’s Office. “The idea is to save the county money and to serve the person holistically in the future so that they are not sitting in jail without mental health services.”

County Attorney Rogers also noted it would be prudent to identify mental illness in suspects for liability reasons.

“Frankly, (having an undiagnosed individual in jail) is a liability for the county as well,” he said. “If you’ve got an individual suffering a mental health crisis while incarcerated, that can obviously lead to issues.”

dakota@thepicayune.com