Allowed detention facilities for emergency detention and involuntary commitment. (FE)

What it would have done

Summary by the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislature's nonpartisan drafting office. It's their wording, not ours.

This bill requires the Department of Health Services to allow law enforcement to transport individuals to be detained for emergency detention or involuntary commitment to the most convenient mental health institute, either Mendota Mental Health Institute or Winnebago Mental Health Institute, if the individual is intended to be detained at a mental health institute. Under current law, a law enforcement officer or certain other persons may take an individual into custody for purposes of emergency detention if the officer or other person has cause to believe that the individual is mentally ill, drug dependent, or developmentally disabled, and that the individual shows certain behaviors. The county department of community programs must approve the need for detention and may not do so unless a psychiatrist, psychologist, or other mental health professional has performed a crisis assessment on the individual and agrees with the need for detention and the county department believes the individual will not voluntarily consent to evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment. Under current law, an individual may be detained for possible involuntary commitment upon a three-person petition, which must allege that the individual is mentally ill, drug dependent, or developmentally disabled, is a proper subject for treatment, and is dangerous because the individual evidences certain behaviors. If an individual is to be detained for emergency detention or before an involuntary commitment proceeding, the law enforcement officer or other person must transport the person for detention to a treatment facility approved by DHS or the county department, if the facility agrees to detain, or to a state treatment facility, which includes Mendota Mental Health Institute and Winnebago Mental Health Institute. In 2014, DHS implemented a policy that Mendota Mental Health Institute serves forensic male patients and only elderly adult civil patients while Winnebago Mental Health Institute serves all other civil patients, including those detained under emergency detention and involuntary commitment proceedings, and forensic female patients.

The bill also requires DHS to collaborate with hospitals to develop a grant program to establish regional mental health crisis centers to accept individuals for emergency detention and to include a proposal for the grant program in its 2019-21 biennial budget request.

Who's behind it

6 senators are its authors⁠. 5 are Democrats and 1 is a Republican.

30 more lawmakers signed on in support⁠.