RACINE COUNTY - Local law enforcement officers spend thousands of hours annually monitoring patients in need of psychiatric care, hours that could be reduced if the system were run more efficiently.

The thousands of hours come close to the number of extra hours the $400,000 police overtime referendum could have provided if it had passed Tuesday, a Journal Times analysis found.

Monitoring patients takes a lot of deputies and officers off the street, but a proposed procedure could be on the way for law enforcement to get back on the streets sooner.

The proposed procedure would allow doctors and law enforcement to conduct an initial risk assessment of patients to determine if they are likely to flee the hospital, said Assistant Racine Police Chief Steven Hurley. If they are not likely to flee or cause problems, law enforcement will return to their shifts rather than sit at the hospital for hours, he said.

Hundreds of emergency detentions

Deputies and officers who pick up psychiatric patients typically have to sit at the hospital for an average of four or more hours waiting for them to be evaluated and admitted to a secure mental health facility. Then, law enforcement uses additional time transporting patients to mental health care facilities, which can be as far away as Oshkosh or Madison.

The Racine police and Sheriff's departments do not record the number of hours they spend supervising psychiatric patients. Racine County Probate Court records show there were 684 emergency detentions this year, through Oct. 31, said Register in Probate Carol Mills.

An emergency detention occurs when people are unwillingly taken into custody for mental health concerns because they appear to pose a threat to themselves or others.

Emergency detentions typically require two police officers who monitor psychiatric patients for an average of four hours or more, Hurley said. The hours are typically not done through overtime, but take officers off the street, he said.

If two law enforcement officers each spent an average of four hours at the hospital for each patient that would have equaled 5,472 hours spent for psychiatric patients this year through Oct. 31, a Journal Times analysis found.

Which is about three-quarters the number of hours that the $400,000 police overtime referendum could have provided if the public had approved it on Election Day. The estimate doesn't even include the extra time spent transporting patients.

New emergency detention procedure

Under state statute, law enforcement must stay with patients brought in for an emergency detention until they are in a secure facility. Local officials traditionally considered the only secure facility to be a state facility or the psychiatric care center at Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints hospital, 1320 Wisconsin Ave, formerly St. Luke's hospital. But Racine City Attorney Rob Weber said he believes a proposed evaluation program would be in agreement with state statute.

The proposed program of an initial risk assessment of patients at the Spring Street campus' emergency room would determine if they are likely to flee the hospital or cause other problems, Hurley said.

It should reduce the wait for law enforcement from an average of four hours to one hour for people who are considered low risk, Hurley said. But at this time he does not know how many people will be low risk or high risk, he said.

If the person is considered a low-flight risk the officers would be able to go back on the streets patrolling and the hospital officials would have a hand-held panic button to signal police directly if anything happens, Hurley said. But if the person is high-flight risk, such as having a history of problems or posing threats, the officers would stay with them until the person is placed in a secure mental health center.

Law enforcement officials have been meeting with Wheaton Franciscan officials for the last nine months, said Paul Mason, the vice president of clinical services at Wheaton Franciscan-All Saints. He is excited about the new plan but said that a lot of details still need to be worked out, such as who will make the assessment and how exactly the process will work.