LOUISVILLE — Kentucky is attempting to improve mental-health care for inmates in county jails — from adding suicide-prevention training for new deputy jailers to encouraging jails to establish contracts for regular mental-health services.

        The developments came after a seven-month investigation by the Louisville Courier-Journal into the treatment of the mentally ill in Kentucky's 85 county jails.

        The newspaper reported that at least 17 people committed suicide in Kentucky's jails during a recent 30-month period, most without having seen a mental-health professional while in custody.

        At least two mentally ill inmates died in restraints during the same period.

        The first step Kentucky should take is to provide all jail officers with basic training about mental illness, said Jim Dailey, advocacy director for the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill of Kentucky.

        “We've lost 17 people in our state when we are supposed to be providing care to them,” he said.

        Mr. Dailey suggested that this training could employ some of a four-hour program for police officers that he is developing under a $100,000 grant through the Kentucky Department for Mental Health and Mental Retardation Services.

        The goal is to train all 7,500 Kentucky police officers during 2003.

        Also, the Corrections Department said it would add suicide-prevention training to its 16-hour basic training for new deputy jailers, starting this week. The state already offers that topic in its advanced class, for deputies with at least three years of experience.

        Most jails do not have contracts with their local, state-supported mental-health agencies, which often results in poorly defined responsibilities for treating inmates and in inadequate care.

        Many said that the two state agencies with responsibility in this area — the mental-health and corrections departments — need to work together to help the jails and the mental-health agencies reach agreements.

        Last Monday, officials of the mental-health department, the Corrections Department and the jailers' association met.

        One idea they discussed, State Mental Health Commissioner Margaret Pennington said, was producing a handbook that would tell jailers about mental illness, what mental-health services are available, and how to find them.

        Kentucky currently does not require jails to report suicides to the Department of Corrections, and therefore does not learn from them or track their frequency.

        For instance, the newspaper found that in one jail, two inmates hanged themselves from the same light fixture. But the state was unaware of that, so it did not alert other jails about the potential dangers of such fixtures.

        State Deputy Corrections Commissioner Hazel M. Combs said the department will ask jails to voluntarily submit data about suicides, which could then be distributed to other jailers.

        In her Feb. 22 letter to jails, Combs included a one-page incident report describing a Feb. 12 jail suicide in Calloway County. The letter says, “The goal of this information is to make you aware of the manner in which the act was committed so you can review your current structure, and take any proactive steps necessary to prevent an incident of this nature in your facility.”

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