Special offender program is voluntary

The state's Dangerous Mentally Ill Offender program underwent a name change in recent years in an attempt to soften the image of the clients it served.

Though it is officially the Community Integration Assistance Program, the old label stuck. Whatever it's called, the program aims to keep offenders with mental illnesses from cycling in and out of prison and jail after they have served time for assaults, robberies, drug crimes and other felonies.

More than 500 ex-prisoners are eligible to participate in the voluntary program. Only about 225 are currently receiving mental health and other services, according to the Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees the program along with the Department of Corrections.

About 70 cases are in King County, where Sound Mental Health holds the state contract to provide services, said Trish Blanchard, chief clinical officer for the Seattle-based agency.

James Anthony Williams is one of those local offenders, corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said, though officials declined to discuss details.

While his history might have been enough to place Williams under the increased oversight of the program, a record of such behavior isn't enough for commitment to Western State Hospital, said Thomas Saltrup, director of behavioral health services for the Corrections Department.

Williams was evaluated before his release from prison March 8, 2006, but did not meet the criteria for civil commitment, which requires that a person by actively psychotic, Lewis said.

Saltrup said inmates are recommended to the program three ways: referral by prison employees, by raising red flags in a database tracked by the Corrections Department, or at the suggestion of a mental health provider in the community.

Six months before the prisoners are released, their criminal history and mental status are reviewed by a committee of mental health, chemical dependency, corrections, law enforcement and other professionals. Prisoners who have a major mental health disorder and pose a high risk to public safety or themselves are referred to the program.

Service providers work with the prisoners during their last three months of incarceration to build relationships and to prepare them for their transition back into society.

Caseworkers, corrections officers and re-entry specialists help their released clients get subsidized housing, jobs, substance-abuse treatment and other help.

"If someone is supposed to take medicine or come for treatment and don't, that might result in (the Corrections Department) bringing them in to jail," Blanchard said. "It might result in hospitalization, or both those things."

Though the program is "entirely voluntary," the Corrections Department has the authority to make participation a condition of release, said David Weston, the new chief of mental health services at DSHS. "For some folks, this is their best opportunity to get housing and other services."

The released prisoners are not committed to a state mental hospital if they do not pose an "imminent danger," Weston said.

"Under Washington law ... you can't just lock those people up (without cause)."