AGREEMENT REACHED ON IMATES; RULES ON MENTALLY ILL WOULD UNIFY HANDLING.

Byline: Lee Condon Daily News Staff Writer

Under the gun from the U.S. Department of Justice, county officials have created a new set of rules for the handling of mentally ill inmates who are in jail.

The Sheriff's Department and the county's Mental Health Department have drafted a new memorandum of understanding, which officials expect will lead to a more cooperative effort in treating mentally ill inmates.

Although the Sheriff's Department and mental health officials have been working together in the jails for more than 20 years, the new agreement marks the first time their roles and responsibilities have been clearly defined in a detailed and concise way.

``We didn't communicate well and perhaps had different perspectives on mental illness,'' said David Meyer, chief of justice programs for the Department of Mental Health. ``Any time you put warm and fuzzy caregivers with tough public safety people, you're going to have different perspectives. They have a completely different prism on the world.''

The Board of Supervisors will discuss the memorandum of understanding in closed session during its meeting today but members are not slated to take any action on the document.

The new agreement comes in response to a blistering Justice Department report released last month, in which federal investigators labeled the treatment of mentally ill inmates unconstitutional. Justice officials put the county on 40-day notice that if changes were not made, they were reserving the right to sue the county under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act.

The Justice Department criticized the jails for not identifying mental illness in inmates, failing to have enough psychiatrists to deal with the mentally ill population, failing to do enough to prevent suicides, unfairly isolating mentally ill inmates and allowing mentally ill inmates to be abused by other inmates and deputy sheriffs working in the jails.

Of the 20,000 people who make up the county jail population, more than 1,600 on average are determined to be suffering from some type of mental illness.

Sheriff Sherman Block said the situation has transformed the jails into not just custody facilities, but one of the largest mental institutions in the country.

``This has to do with the failure of the state of California to provide adequate medical facilities,'' Block said. ``The deficiencies are obviously a result of insufficient resources.''

Under the memorandum, the Department of Mental Health promises to provide training to Sheriff's Department staff to help identify the signs and symptoms of mental illness, including suicidal behavior.

Both the Sheriff's and Mental Health departments will participate in a continuous quality improvement program, and both departments have committed to screening all new bookings for mental health needs and assuring that all inmates have access to mental health services.

Both Meyer and Barry King, the chief of custody for the Sheriff's Department, said the treatment of the mentally ill in the jails has improved vastly since Justice Department investigators visited in August 1996.

On the mental health side, Meyer said the Mental Health Department has hired on 60 new psychiatrists and psychologists to work in the jails since October, the result of a $15 million infusion of cash from the Board of Supervisors.

On the jail side, the Sheriff's Department has closed down Sybill Brand Institute in Sylmar and transferred its female prisoners to the new Twin Towers Jail downtown, which features better facilities for the mentally ill.

``Sybill Brand was a pretty grim place to be mentally ill,'' Meyer said. ``It was never set up for treating people.''

The Sheriff's Department has also opened a new Inmate Reception Center downtown, where some 800 to 1,000 new inmates are booked into the system everyday, providing more space to assess the behavior of inmates, King said.

Still, the Sheriff's Department has not opened the medical facility at Twin Towers because it has been unable to find money in its budget to open and staff the area. It includes a 50-bed inpatient facility designated for the mentally ill.