Two senior state lawmakers said Wednesday the influx of low-level offenders to Oregon’s public psychiatric hospital is “unacceptable” and announced legislation to lessen the number of people sent there.

The announcement, made by House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson, D-Portland, and Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, is the first time Oregon lawmakers have spoken out about the rising number of mentally ill defendants sent to the hospital.

“The current situation at the Oregon State Hospital is absolutely unacceptable,” they said in a joint statement. “Failure to properly address this issue has led the state to a perilous point.”

The lawmakers lead the House and Senate committees that control criminal justice law.

The “perilous point” has arisen as more and more people charged with crimes in Oregon appear mentally ill, leading judges to send those defendants to the Oregon State Hospital in Salem for psychiatric evaluations and treatment.

The Oregonian/OregonLive published an investigation in January into how the practice affects low-level offenders, finding that Oregon taxpayers spend more than $35 million a year on treatment for those defendants to stand trial. Once those cases resolve, however, most defendants became homeless and were without medication. Many reoffended, beginning the costly cycle again.

Those cases are increasingly common as police officers, prosecutors, judges and state officials grapple with little success over how to respond to Oregon’s worsening homelessness, mental health and drug abuse crises.

For now, the Oregon State Hospital is pushed to the brink of overcrowding and into legal trouble. The lawmakers’ reform announcement, for example, comes one day after a Washington County judge held the hospital in contempt of court for ignoring orders to admit defendants within a longstanding one-week deadline.

Williamson said in an interview that the contempt order, through which the state is fined $400 each day it violates the deadlines with four specific cases, “put pressure on the Legislature” to quickly act.

The deadlines may seem arbitrary, but federal judges established them to prevent indefinite jail stays for mentally ill defendants. Oregon routinely violates the deadlines however, The Oregonian/OregonLive found in a separate investigation of more than 200 such cases. In essence, the rise in cases and space limitations at the state hospital has caused mentally ill defendants to languish in jail instead of receiving court-ordered medical care.

Defense attorneys in Washington County led the effort to hold the state in contempt over four cases in which defendants were jailed beyond the court-ordered deadlines. Lawyers are seeking to hold the state in contempt in federal court over the same issue. A hearing is scheduled for next week.

Williamson and Prozanski said they plan to remedy the situation by amending a bill currently advancing in the Legislature, Senate Bill 24, to “significantly restrict” when people charged with municipal violations or misdemeanors can be sent to the hospital. They envision those defendants would instead undergo trial fitness treatment at existing facilities in their home counties, which are less expensive to operate than the state hospital.

State data shows people charged with misdemeanors or municipal violations – offenses such as trespass, public urination, or the lowest rungs of assault or theft – account for about 40 percent of Oregon State Hospital admissions for trial fitness treatment. About 60 percent of defendants who enter the hospital are homeless.

Williamson said it is “outrageous” that so many low-level offenders land in the psychiatric hospital, which she said should be reserved for people who are “truly dangerous.”

“That somebody would go to the state hospital on a municipal violation is an incredibly expensive way to be dealing with a broken mental health system,” Williamson said.

-- Gordon R. Friedman

GFriedman@Oregonian.com