Wyoming Department of Health officials and many county sheriffs hope proposed legislation will lead to more treatment for mentally ill people detained in county jails while they wait for a bed at the state’s psychiatric hospital in Evanston.
On Monday, the Legislature’s Joint Judiciary Committee will consider a bill that allows the health department to reimburse sheriffs for the cost of holding those inmates. While the bill simply authorizes the department to contract with sheriffs without dictating what services are provided, its backers say it’s a necessary step to get state government resources flowing toward a problem largely being shouldered by Wyoming’s 23 counties.
“What we’re doing right now is simply warehousing people in a jail setting and waiting,” Allen Thompson, director of the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police, told WyoFile. At judiciary committee meetings this summer, sheriffs have described jailhouse horror scenes of mental illness that traumatize and wear down staff and other inmates, while worsening the recovery outlook for the inmate experiencing the psychic break.
Health officials have been working with law enforcement on the measure ever since a January letter from Uinta County Sheriff Andy Kopp put the problem on lawmakers’ radar. The hope, health and law enforcement leaders told WyoFile, is that county sheriffs can both fund treatment programs inside the jails and plug holes in their budgets.
If the bill goes through, Thompson said, the state’s larger jails in particular could have better access to counselors, medications and Telehealth programs.
Some smaller sheriff departments have expressed less interest in contracting with the health department, Thompson said, either because they don’t hold mentally ill inmates as often or because their small size makes providing treatment options more challenging.
But boosting treatment at the state’s larger jails, like Natrona and Laramie counties, could relieve pressure on the state hospital. Sheriffs from those two counties, the state’s largest departments, have worked to craft the measure lawmakers will review Monday, Thompson said.
Department of Health Director Stefan Johansson echoed the belief that working even with just some sheriffs could have a statewide impact. “This bill next week opens the door for us … to really grow as a system,” he told WyoFile.
For years, judges have sent more people to the Wyoming State Hospital than there have been beds available. Judges issue such orders both in criminal and civil courts — in the former after people accused of committing crimes are found mentally incompetent to stand trial, and in the latter when a judge rules someone presents a danger to themselves or others.
The bill before the judiciary committee addresses the criminal court side of the problem.
The hospital has 104 beds for patients, but because of staffing issues at the state-run facility, only around 80 are available today, Johansson said. Around 25 of those beds are available to patients in the criminal justice system, the director said, though they can shift some beds for that purpose depending on demand.
Judges are ordering people into that system at a higher volume than even a fully staffed facility, with 104 beds open, can handle, Johansson said. By better treating people inside jails, officials hope inmates could stabilize enough to face court and never have to go to Evanston at all.
The backlog in Evanston has had a ripple effect on county jails around the state, where untreated mentally ill inmates wait for beds for months. Those people have often been arrested on suspicion of a crime but not convicted, and in many cases can’t see their cases adjudicated until they reach the state hospital for evaluation and treatment.
“Some of these folks are staying in jail for a period of time longer than if they’d been allowed to just plead guilty to the crime [they’re charged with],” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Art Washut, a Casper Republican.
Meanwhile, they languish in cells, their psychic conditions often further deteriorating. Wyoming has one of the highest rates of jail suicides in the nation, according to a WyoFile investigation that examined the problem in 2023.
Bill proponents don’t believe allowing contracts between sheriffs and the health department will solve the problem on its own, they told WyoFile. But alongside other measures aimed at addressing mentally ill individuals in the justice system, or keeping them out of it, they see a chance to start curbing the number of people waiting in jail cells for treatment.
Even if law enforcement and health officials like the measure, it could face hurdles as the conservative Wyoming Legislature approaches a state budget session with many lawmakers hoping for deep funding cuts. For the measure to make a dent on the complex problem of mental illness in jails, it requires funding, both Thompson and Johansson noted.
Sheriffs will be wary about entering into contracts with the state agency if they don’t think the state agency has enough funding, Thompson said. The health department has the ability to cover some costs with existing funds, Johansson said, but he will likely request a $4 million appropriation to cover any overruns if the department has to pay sheriffs to house and treat a large number of inmates over the coming two-year budget period.
But the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which dominates the House and subsequently the House Appropriations Committee, is bringing particular scrutiny to the health department’s budget. At the House side’s urging, the appropriations committee recently appointed a subcommittee to take a deep dive into the agency’s budget over the course of five meetings ahead of the session, which begins in February 2026.
So securing more funding could be a tough ask this session, Washut told WyoFile. On the other hand, under the current system, the state is leaving counties to shoulder the cost.
“It certainly is a burden on the counties to hold people in jail for such a long time,” Washut said.
Giving mental health authority to LE could be a dangerous slope which leads up abuse of power by local and other officials to silence and suppress free thought and 1st Amendment rights in citizens.
I agree with treating those with clear and apparent behavioral issues in custody.
I lived in another state and was the recipient of the politicized weapon that mental health has become as well as two red flag attempts on my person made based on allegations using “qualified priviledge” (which means the person or entity making such allegations cannot be identified or cross examined and whose identity is kept secret) with no evidence or realistic basis, but failed to do so.
It is a favorite choice of weapon in politics and life by those who demand compliance or surrender to agendas no matter how insane, antiAmerican, or unConstitutional they may be.
THINK
12.7% of Americans take prescription antidepressants, that number is a fraction of those that take other drugs or alcohol to “deal” with psychological problems.
Mental illness is at epidemic levels in the USA, and no one is getting to the root causes, or actually trying to cure it.