-Source-The Seattle Times-
he Seattle Times recently published a report on an uptick in violence at Western State Hospital, the 800-bed psychiatric hospital, and the largest institution in our state, [ “Attacks on staff surge at Western State Hospital: ‘How bad does it have to get?, A1, Oct 5]. There is no doubt that we have enormous challenges ahead to fix our state’s mental-health system and stop the revolving door of bad news coming from Western State Hospital. But oversimplifying the systemic failures of the mental-health system and further criminalizing mental illness will only exacerbate the poor results we see now. It certainly will not make the hospital safer for staff and patients.
The recent article focused on people who are civilly committed following an unsuccessful attempt to restore them to competency in a criminal case, a process required by state law and known commonly as a “civil flip.” It is an approach used in Washington and other states to more appropriately seek treatment when it is impossible to prosecute people who cannot legally understand or participate in a criminal case against them, often because of complex mental illness or developmental disability.
Civil flips prevent patients who may be a danger to themselves or others from simply being released to the community without needed mental-health care. Several people in the article claim that civil flips may be to blame for recent violence at Western State, a connection that hospital administrators dispute and for which there is no conclusive data. Read more