Sheriff Department improves mental health strategy in jails
[Source: Denver Auditor’s Report] After our June 2022 audit of mental health services in Denver’s jail system, we followed-up with the Denver Sheriff Department and found it made notable progress on implementing our recommendations.
The department fully implemented 14 of our recommendations and partially implemented another 10. The substantive and multifaceted recommendations covered the strategy for mental health programs and the evaluations of those programs, training for deputies, equity, and other related issues for intake and mental health assessments. Additionally, the Department of Public Safety — as the agency responsible — made significant progress on improvements to invoice and contract monitoring.
Remaining risks include the recently suspended intake team. The team was formed in October 2023, but was suspended in 2023 due to staffing issues. This team would have been responsible for collecting data and screening people as they enter custody to determine mental health needs.
The department also has more work to do documenting policies and procedures related to data tracking and analysis, as well as data quality assurance.
“While we hope for full implementation when we follow up on our audit recommendations, we found the progress the Sheriff Department has made is meaningful and managers have laid out a clear path to full implementation in the future,” Auditor O’Brien said.
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