Aug 29, 2018 By Mark Hofmann mhofmann@heraldstandard.Com 3 min read

The Fayette County Prison Board heard different options regarding the treatment for inmates with mental health issues.

During Wednesday’s regular meeting, Deputy Court Administrator Tammy Lambie informed the board that members of the Stepping Up Initiative recently held a stakeholder’s meeting at Torrance State Hospital where the state had a contract with IdeaCrew, a company that helps organizations reach their goals, to make recommendations on how to serve inmates with mental-health issues.

Prisons across the country have had a significant number of inmates with mental illnesses that otherwise would not get the necessary treatment they require as they would at a psychiatric hospital, she said, but state hospitals like Torrance are crowded with a long waiting list.

Lambie said the IdeaCrew came back with several recommendations.

“One recommendation was that every county develop a restoration mental-health unit in their jail,” Lambie said, adding an alternative would be several counties having a regional mental-health unit available for evaluations or restore the inmate to competency.

Lambie said another recommendation was for counties to start an out-patient competency restoration program.

She said there was a stakeholder meeting at Harrisburg State Hospital on Tuesday where all the comments and suggestions made at the first stakeholder meeting were reviewed, then a proposal will be submitted to the state for approval and then “we’ll see what comes down the road.”

The Stepping Up Initiative’s goal is to reduce the number of mentally ill people in prisons as it recently recommended the prison increase the number of hours for tele-psychiatric counseling, which the board and the county commissioners both voted to approve.

Also at the meeting, Joann Clarke, a sales and marketing representative with Pennsylvania Correctional Industries (PCI), had reached out to the county regarding available services.

“We were just hoping, in the future when you move forward, that you would consider us as a vendor,” Clarke said, adding that PCI also makes inmate and guard clothing, cleaning products, laundry services, signs, “just about everything that you can possibly imagine in the DOC itself is made by the inmates.”

PCI, which is a current vendor to Fayette County, said they have between 1,500 to 2,000 inmates employed in several state correctional institutions, including SCI-Fayette, which has a metal shop where inmates make license plates as well as bunks, cages and other items.

Warden Jeffrey Myers said he would like to meet with PCI to see what’s available, and Clarke said she’ll be ready to answer any questions and receive any bid requests for whatever needs the new prison may have.

In other business, Myers said the population count as of Wednesday morning was 156 males and 38 females for a total of 194, and four inmates — two men and two women — are incarcerated out of the county.

Absent from Wednesday’s meeting was Fayette County District Attorney Rich Bower and Fayette County Judge Steve Leskinen.