Senate Judiciary discusses S.193 amendment to require therapeutic forensic facility, clarifies language on 'multiple facilities'

The Senate Judiciary Committee considered an amendment to S.193 that would require a forensic facility to provide a therapeutic, recovery‑oriented and trauma‑informed environment comparable to a community‑based residential treatment setting while maintaining appropriate safety and security.

The amendment sponsor outlined the package of implementation provisions the committee added: staff qualifications and licensure standards, requirements that a registered nurse or a physician be available seven days a week around the clock, a clinical assessment within 72 hours of transfer, inclusion of required services in the WellPath contract, and reporting and rulemaking requirements. The amendment directs an interim report in October and an annual written report from the Department of Corrections and the Department of Mental Health to the committees by Jan. 15; committee staff said formal rulemaking to set clinical and quality standards could take about 18 months.

Agency officials told the committee they support giving officials flexibility to determine where and how competency restoration and treatment are provided for this very small population. A Department representative said the requested flexibility would allow the Department of Corrections and the Agency of Human Services to ‘‘look at the people, and determine what is most politically appropriate’’ and noted that treatment programs already sometimes mix different clinical populations.

Committee members pressed the amendment’s drafters to fix ambiguous language in section 4 that currently reads, in part, to allow the "possible operation of multiple facilities." Several members said the phrasing could be read to require the new forensic facility itself to ‘‘operate’’ other facilities rather than to allow coordination among existing sites. Staff proposed striking the second clause and ending the sentence (leaving a semicolon/period as appropriate) or replacing the wording with a phrase that clarifies coordination with other facilities rather than creating an operational obligation.

Members also discussed where people would be placed and how populations should be categorized. One participant raised concern that the transcript draft used a redacted term shown as "***" rather than the word "gender," and warned that language choices could risk placing transgender people in the wrong facility. Senator Wendy Harrison, chair of the Institutions Committee, said her committee would be willing to change the language to ‘‘gender’’ and that the committees had collaborated on the amendment’s design elements, staffing considerations and the need to keep the forensic facility separate from other correctional populations when appropriate.

A Department of Corrections speaker cautioned that classification decisions are currently based on the totality of circumstances and that DOC does not separate people solely by the redacted term or by gender; the speaker said they could not confirm whether the small number of people currently in custody would meet the exact statutory parameters in the amended language.

No formal vote or motion on final text was recorded in the transcript. Committee staff said they will work with legislative counsel (Katie) to finalize drafting choices — including the punctuation and whether the clause should read as coordination rather than operation and how to render the separation criterion — and expected to return to wrap up the issue in a future session.

The committee’s discussion emphasized clinical safeguards, staffing and reporting obligations for any forensic facility created under S.193, while members and agency officials sought clearer drafting to avoid imposing unintended operational or fiscal obligations on state agencies.