EDITORIAL: Justice system’s mental health disaster

There is no avoiding the high costs of Nevada's shameful mental health emergency. If we fail to pay up front to treat those in crisis, we pay at the back end when they crowd our emergency rooms or wind up in the overwhelmed criminal justice system.

A written decision is pending from District Judge Jennifer Togliatti on whether to hold the state in contempt for failing to treat mentally ill inmates in a remotely timely fashion. Inmates incompetent to stand trial are supposed to be transported to Lake's Crossing Center in Sparks, Nevada's only maximum-security psychiatric facility, within seven days of a court order. But the wait is about 100 days, with nearly 60 inmates awaiting transfer at a cost to the county of $135 per day to jail them.

It's been this way for years, to varying degrees. The Clark County public defender's office has been pressing for more rapid treatment of defendants, correctly pointing out that the state's lack of treatment capacity is violating defendants' rights.

Judge Togliatti was told in a hearing earlier this month that the state plans to open a new psychiatric facility in Las Vegas on Nov. 15. Its few beds will be a start. But Nevada's mental health system remains woeful across the board. And we're paying for it every day.

Considering Southern Nevada is the state's population center, economic driver and a mental health disaster area, it's astounding that the mental health facility most important to the state justice system is in Sparks. The state needs to open a larger version of Lake's Crossing in Las Vegas ASAP. Nothing else will do.