Kansas was sued over delayed psych exams for defendants. Now state hospitals will expand

Kansas will gain 30 new beds for people charged with crimes who are awaiting psychological assessments and treatment before they stand trial, and another 52 are planned.

The assessments, called competency evaluations, consider defendants’ mental health to see if they can assist in their own defense.

The long wait times for these evaluations in state hospitals have meant that people have languished in jail sometimes for even longer than their sentence would be.

The new beds are a result of a settlement in a lawsuit filed on behalf of a man who was incarcerated for 31 months while he waited for treatment on a six-month sentence, among others.

“This settlement is more than a legal agreement; it’s a lifeline for those who have been lost in the system, a promise that their dignity and humanity will no longer be ignored,” said Lauren Bonds, executive director of the National Police Accountability Project, one of the plaintiffs.

The Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services will add 30 beds at Larned State Hospital by January, NPAP said. It will also “use its best efforts” for another 52 beds at the South-Central State Psychiatric Hospital by January 2027, the settlement terms said.

KDADS and Gov. Laura Kelly’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit was filed in May 2022. It alleged KDADS was engaging in “unconstitutional, unlawful, and harmfully long wait times for competency evaluation and competency restoration treatment.”

Kansas currently has two state psychiatric hospitals, Larned and Osawatomie. Only Larned has a forensic unit dedicated to evaluating and treating defendants facing charges.

Judges can order a psychological examination at Larned to determine if a person is competent to stand trial.

At the time the lawsuit was filed, defendants waited 11 months to be seen at Larned, and more than 100 people were on the wait list.

“It is forcing people with serious mental illness to remain locked in cages in local county jails at great harm to their mental health and ability to stabilize enough to assist with their own defense,” the lawsuit said, adding that the wait time was a violation of due process rights.

To create the 30 beds, the settlement said KDADS will request funding to include a nursing unit leader position to oversee staff and programming and offer above-market salaries as well as bonuses to attract employees.

For the 52 forensic treatment beds, KDADS will submit quarterly updates on design and staffing plans starting Dec. 31.

The state agency will also send a monthly report on the number of people on the waitlist.

Other steps it will take include trainings to mitigate the number of defendants with minor charges who go to jail and ensure its budget requests will include funding for community mental health centers that serve as an alternative to state hospitals.

The state denied violations of federal law as part of the settlement.

The reporting and reviewing mechanisms will end Oct. 31, 2027.

“This is a huge step in the ongoing work to ensure our state’s detention practices do not criminalize mental health issues,” said Monica Bennett, legal director at the ACLU of Kansas, another plaintiff. “Remaining in the jail environment is devastating and deeply harmful even for those whose mental health is not in question, and condemning Kansans to languish across the state in their county jails was contradictory to our values of justice.”

In Sedgwick County, where construction is set to begin on the new state-run psychiatric hospital, those in the county jail wait on average 130 days to be admitted to Larned State Hospital for a competency evaluation, KDADS Deputy Secretary Scott Brunner said in December 2023. On the more extreme end, some people have been held in jail for more than 300 days, Brunner acknowledged.

The new $101.5 million hospital, which is expected to accept its first patients in early 2027, will add 104 mental health beds, but only half of those will be made available to defendants who would otherwise be transferred to Larned.