MEGAN: I'm Megan from Vancouver, Washington.
My husband and I, Johnny, we have two kids.
[audio description]
We're a nice, quiet family. [laughs]
JOHNNY: My name is Johnny Jones.
I've been dealing with mental health most of my life.
Then I met Megan and I was pretty fine for awhile,
and then I just kind of relapsed.
MEGAN: When he was arrested, it was the first time
that we were away for longer than a couple days.
So that experience was hard, him being taken away from us.
The first time the police were called,
they came out and Johnny talked to them,
and they were like,
"Well, it's not against the law to be mentally ill.
"We can't do anything until he does something."
They gave us the number for the mobile crisis,
and on there it said, "Only available Monday, Tuesday,
"and Thursdays," [laughs] and this was a Friday.
So, I'm like, "Great."
When I called the crisis line, they said,
"Well," basically, the same thing the police said.
"There's nothing that we can do until something happens.
"We need him to call."
We were left to deal with it on our own.
[audio description]
(KIMBERLY): My name's Kimberly Mosolf.
I'm the director of the Treatment Facilities Program
at Disability Rights Washington.
In Johnny's case, they tried a lot of different things
before they encountered the police.
They called for help,
but those services weren't available.
They called for crisis services,
they weren't open at the time.
Eventually, when the police arrived,
the police did what the police do,
which is assess if there's a potential crime,
and arrest someone.
And oftentimes, the police will make the arrest
because in their minds,
taking someone in crisis to the jail
might be a better way to get that person services, than not.
Unfortunately, when someone with mental illness
is arrested and taken to jail,
that access to services, it doesn't happen.
And in fact, they end up doing much worse.
JOHNNY: They didn't even take me for a mental evaluation.
They took me straight to jail.
MEGAN: He was in jail for two months.
He was so far into his psychosis
that he was refusing his medications.
JOHNNY: It was just horrifying,
just being locked up in a place,
no familiar faces.
I'm already paranoid,
thinking people out to get me and stuff,
and they put me in jail?
MEGAN: Within 24 hours of his arrest, I was researching.
I found an article in The Seattle Times
about Trueblood.
[audio description]
KIMBERLY: The Trueblood lawsuit is relatively complicated,
but at heart, it's about ensuring that
people with serious mental illness, who are in jail,
are getting the treatment and services that they need,
in a timely fashion.
And that often means
moving them out of the jail and into a treatment facility,
in a timely fashion.
Unfortunately, the state wasn't able to do that,
so in 2014, we filed a class-action lawsuit,
A.B. versus DSHS, or versus Washington State,
which is more commonly known as the Trueblood lawsuit.
[NARRATOR]
So even with a court order,
the state was not able to
evaluate and move people out of the jails
in a timely fashion.
So the court found them in contempt and imposed fines,
and that ended up being over $80 million in contempt fines.
In 2018, we decided to take a step back
and think more creatively about this.
Was there a way to sit down,
with the participation of the state,
and think about this problem more broadly?
Why were we seeing so many people being arrested
and funneled into the criminal legal system
instead of into treatment?
We talked to stakeholders throughout the state
about what they thought the solutions were,
and we came up with a very detailed settlement agreement,
that was meant to make some longer, lasting changes,
that would actually make a dent in this problem,
and would actually improve people's lives, in the long term.
(NARRATOR): The agreements within the Trueblood Settlement are wide-reaching.
Some of them include:
More facilities where people in crisis can go for help
instead of being arrested.
Short-term housing for people transitioning out of facilities.
Funding for programs that provide increased training for officers.
Mobile crisis 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
and peer specialist training programs
for individuals with lived experience.
DARYA: My name is Darya Farivar.
I am the community and legislative liaison
with Disability Rights Washington.
I'm part of the Public Policy team,
and my role is to make sure that
Trueblood Class Members have a way to
meaningfully engage in advocacy,
and with the settlement.
As we had class members standing up
and telling their stories in a really courageous way,
it really, I think, inspired a lot of other people
to also tell their stories,
which might be a little bit different,
which might have happened in different states,
but you really realize that almost everyone has had
some kind of interaction with these systems.
MEGAN: It doesn't just affect the inmate.
You know, and mentally ill people have families that love them,
and have kids, and have homes.
JOHNNY: It's not all about me anymore.
I have a wife and kids to take care of.
I gotta be stable enough to do so.
MEGAN: I don't want anyone else to go through what I went through,
and what my husband went through in jail,
and what my kids went through
not having their dad around.
(KIMBERLY): Disability Rights Washington has achieved
so much through the Trueblood case.
It's not just a class-action anymore,
it has just become a way that we can
rethink the mental health and criminal legal systems,
and how those two interact together.
Moving forward, there's more work to do.
We need to make sure that we're implementing this
in a way that truly works, and is truly effective.
JOHNNY: No sick person should ever end up in jail.
That should be the last place they should end up,
you know, is in jail.
(NARRATOR)