Copyright Kalispell Inter Lake
During my term in the Montana Legislature, I served on the Judiciary and Human Services Committees, where we often heard testimony about the Forensic Mental Health Facility in Galen. I was alarmed to learn it was at full capacity. The facility evaluates and treats people in the criminal justice system whose mental health affects their ability to stand trial. When it is full, courts across Montana are left waiting, with around 130 people sitting in county jails in legal limbo. Their cases cannot move forward until competency questions are resolved, sometimes for months or even years. This backlog has real consequences. County jails lose valuable bed space, often keeping these individuals in single cells for safety reasons. Some have been held so long that judges have dismissed charges for lack of a speedy trial, denying victims justice and preventing defendants from clearing their names. Having managed two large jails in other states, I understand these challenges well. When bed space runs short, jail administrators are forced to release lower-level offenders to make room for higher risk ones. Without capacity, judges lose options for accountability and communities are left to deal with the results. To help solve this, I introduced House Bill 912, which directed the state to build a new forensic mental health facility east of Big Timber. The plan, supported by Matt Kuntz of the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Montana, will ease the burden on rural sheriffs and improve staffing compared to the remote Galen site. Locating the new facility east of Big Timber is also a strategic choice. It reduces the long travel times for sheriffs in eastern counties who currently transport defendants across the state and helps balance state investment between western and eastern Montana. This project is about restoring justice, fairness, and efficiency to our criminal justice system. Rep. Steven Kelly, R-Montana.
