Sacred Oak Medical Center proposes partnering with the Texas Department of Justice to build an 80-bed psychiatric hospital and other facilities on state-owned land to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment for inmates. This would help address the current situation where prisons have become the main facilities housing the mentally ill due to lack of psychiatric hospital beds and infrastructure. The new facilities could improve treatment outcomes, decrease costs over time, and help expedite treatment and control the inmate population.

1. SACRED OAK
MEDICAL CENTER

2. Sacred Oak Medical is a evidence based provider of Behavioral Health services.
Programs include:
Inpatient
Services
Outpatient
Psychiatric
Services
Inpatient
Substance
Abuse
Outpatient
Substance
Abuse Services
Detoxification Specialized
Programs in
Development

3. Sacred Oak Medical Center
Sacred Oak has identified an opportunity to assist the State, Federal and County penal system in
their efforts to provide adequate, quality, and cost-effective psychiatric & substance abuse
services.
Sacred Oak is proposing to partner with the Texas Department of Justice to build a Behavioral
Health Center to service the current inmate population and offer services post-release for
inmates.

4. Proposal
• Sacred Oak will fund & build an 80-Bed certified psychiatric
hospital on state-owned land.
• Sacred Oak will lease the land located at XXXXXXXXXXX
• Texas Department of Justice will apportion a certain amount of the
healthcare psychiatric budget towards the facility to manage the healthcare
needs of the inmate population.
• Sacred Oak will utilize evidence based treatment methods and population
management techniques to improve the overall quality of care of the inmate
population.
• Sacred Oak will assist in the process of qualifying released inmates for
healthcare services and continue to utilize the services of Sacred Oak.

5. Property Use
80-Bed Inpatient
Psychiatric Facility
50-Bed Residential
Substance Abuse
2 Outpatient
Treatment Facilities
Partial
Hospitalization
Programs
Intensive Outpatient
Programs
Work-Release
Program
Skills Training

6. Texas Department of Justice(TDOJ) has a more
effective use of the healthcare budget.
More funding is provided for treatment vs.
infrastructure cost.
More efficient treatment assist in decreasing
cost per patient over time.
TDOJ can expand the capacity for
treatment of inmates
Current infrastructure is unable to handle the
current population of mental health patients.

7. Assist in population control
Expedite the treatment of patients
Segregate mental ill patients from
general population
Mentally ill patients tend to exhibit the
most violent or most vulnerable behaviors
TDOJ can limit risk and exposure relative
to quality of outcomes for patient
receiving treatment.
Benefits

8. Prisons Have Become America’s New Asylums
Slate, January 5, 2016
“Ten times more mentally ill people are now in jails and prisons than in state psychiatric
hospitals: In 2012, approximately 356,268 inmates with severe mental illness were in
prisons and jails, while about 35,000 severely ill patients were in state psychiatric
hospitals.”
Sexual abuse is rampant. A 2007 prison survey revealed that about 1 in 12 inmates
with a mental disorder reported at least one incident of sexual victimization by
another inmate over a six-month period, compared with 1 in 33 male inmates without
a mental disorder.
Among female inmates with a mental disorder, almost 1 in 4 are sexually
victimized.Rates of Sexual Victimization in Prison for Inmates With and Without
Mental Disorders Nancy Wolff, Ph.D., Cynthia L. Blitz, Ph.D., and Jing Shi, M.S.
Current Situation
x10

9. Current Situation
Judge Tells California to Explain Empty Psychiatric Beds While Prisoners Wait for Care
Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2015
“In 2010, California had hundreds of mentally ill prisoners on long wait lists for inpatient
treatment. The state was ordered to admit many of them to two psychiatric hospitals
that also house people who are accused of crimes but judged innocent by reason of
insanity or incompetent to stand trial.'”
Rethinking Mental Illness and its Path to the Criminal Justice System
Vera Institute of Justice, March 7, 2016
“People often assume that there is a direct relationship between mental illness and
crime: the symptoms of mental illness lead to criminal justice involvement, and
connecting people to mental health treatment will prevent future justice system
involvement. But a growing body of research suggests this is not the case. Indeed,
researchers across several fields have demonstrated that the strongest predictors of
recidivism (such as homelessness and criminal history) appear in people with and
without mental illness.”

10. Current State Funded Infrastructure
Texas lawmakers have funded few of the needed repairs and upgrades at state
hospitals, which provide care for some of the state's most troubled and vulnerable
mental health patients. Now, the Department of State Health Services has
identified a need to replace five of the hospitals and renovate the others over the
next 10 years, but it would cost taxpayers more than $1 billion.
In the last decade, the state provided, on average, 10 percent of the total
need identified by the Department of State Health Services for state hospital
repairs and upgrades. The department requested nearly $89 million in 2015
for projects such as installing fire sprinkler systems, replacing roofs and
making buildings comply with Americans With Disabilities Act standards. They
received $18 million.

11. Current State Funded Infrastructure
Inmates have outnumbered non-inmates at the state hospitals since 2014. The
Dallas Morning News reported last month that more than 380 inmates are
waiting in county lockups, sometimes for months on end, because the state
hospitals don't have enough beds.
The Department of State Health Services requested $7.3 million in 2015 to
replace hardware, like door handles, locks and hinges, and ceilings with exposed
pipes that patients could use to hang themselves with materials that eliminate
that risk. Lawmakers allocated $1.9 million for the projects -- 26 percent of
what was asked.
The Department of State Health Services hopes to purchase around 1,100
additional contracted beds over the next decade, which would cost taxpayers
an additional $1.75 billion.

12. These 25 states
collectively
release some
375,000 inmates
each year.
Studies have showed
Medicaid access in Florida
and Washington cut
return trips to jail among
the mentally ill by 16
percent.
Failure to link emerging
inmates to health
insurance is a missed
opportunity to improve
health and save money by
cutting recidivism as well
as visits to the hospital
emergency room,
advocates say.
Nine states have
only small programs
in select facilities or
for limited groups
of prisoners, like
those with
disabilities.
Nationwide, 16 state
prison systems have no
formal procedure to
enroll prisoners in
Medicaid as they reenter
the community,
according to a survey by
The Marshall Project.