Sheriff: Mental health issues soar in jails

June 20--Henderson County Sheriff Ray Nutt admits, "This is the best job I have ever had." With that said, he also admits there are issues running the Henderson County Sheriff's Office.

Nutt and Henderson County Sheriff Chief Dep. Botie Hillhouse were guest speakers at the Thursday's weekly meeting of the Athens Rotary Club.

Nutt told the members he has 26 patrolmen to cover over 900 miles in Henderson County. The current response time is somewhere around 18 minutes.

"We put calls in priority," said Nutt. "We have 10 felony investigators. We also have to prioritize our cases."

Along with transportation and animal control and communication officers, the county employs 94 people at the Henderson County Jail.

According to Nutt and Hillhouse, the larger issue at the jail is housing the inmates, some of which have mental illnesses.

"We have a $10 million budget, mostly to operate the jail," said Nutt.

Hillhouse said it takes about $29 a day to house each inmate. With close to 300 inmates daily in the county jail, the county pays out almost $9,000 a day to keep inmates in jail. The county does get paid to receive inmates from Van Zandt County.

"We used to house Smith and Kaufman County inmates," said Nutt.

Smith built a new facility and Kaufman has a federal contract.

"Some of our inmates have not seen doctors in over 10 years," said Nutt.

The results are hundreds of mentally-ill people funneling in and out of the county jail.

"We try to get them help," Nutt said.

The county has transported 45 mentally-ill inmates to other facilities this year.

Hillhouse said the issue with mental health is big all over the state of Texas.

The severity of these mental illnesses vary. Some reports state there are more people with mental illnesses in jails than in hospitals.

Suicide is the number one cause of death among inmates in local jails and is the top five for state prisons, according to a federal report.

A report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that over half of all jail and prison inmates have mental-health issues.

Nutt said in many cases the inmate with a mental-illness issue will be released, and arrested later on another charge.

After participating in law enforcement conferences, Hillhouse found other cities using a service to deal with the mentally and physically ill inmates.

He took his information to Nutt, and suggested the county hire Southern Health Partner to deal with the influx of inmates.

Established in 1994, Southern Health Partners provides customized healthcare to over 200 city and county detention centers across 13 states.

Hillhouse said Southern Health Partners spends 30 hours a week at the Henderson County Jail. Southern Health offers medical, as well as mental health services.

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