(The Center Square) – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a pair of bills on Wednesday designed to bring reforms to the state’s behavioral health apparatus and assist with the mentally ill in the criminal justice system.

The second-term GOP governor signed Senate Bills 1620 and 168 in a ceremony in Tampa. 

SB1620 implements some of the key recommendations by the Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder. The measure will standardize clinical mental health assessments used by providers and school mental health programs; improves discharge planning from treatment facilities; requires plans to address access to long-lasting injectable medications for the mentally ill; mandates biennial reviews of telehealth availability with a focus on rural; and underserved areas and supports new training programs and stipends for behavioral health workers. 

SB1620 was sponsored by Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, who was honored by the governor on his legislative work on substance abuse and mental health by having the University of South Florida’s behavioral health services research institute named in his honor. 

“I’ll never forget 27 years, three months ago when I woke up in the Hanley-Hazelden treatment facility and the day I asked for help,” said Rouson, a recovering addict. “The hopelessness, the loneliness, the anger, the fear, the rage, the bottom became my gift of desperation. I became desperate to change and whether I believed I could or whether I couldn’t, I knew I was right. I’m very honored to be here today.”

Rouson also said that he told then-Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, who appointed him to lead the Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder in 2021, that he didn’t want to help author a report that would gather dust on a shelf, but do something that would lead to real, lasting change.

He also said SB1620 turns thoughtful recommendations by the commission into real policy and would help keep Florida a leader at treating people with mental illness and addiction. 

SB168, sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island, is known as the Tristan Murphy Act. It was named after Murphy, a victim of suicide in 2021 at a state correctional facility work program during a mental health episode. 

“We talk about a lot of issues in Tallahassee, but mental health is a messy issue. It’s a difficult issue,” Bradley said. “It’s an issue that is hard to move the ball meaningfully because it takes a lot of resources, it involves the criminal justice system and our sheriffs on the ground. It involves our providers.”

The bill requires the state Department of Corrections to provide physical and mental screenings for inmates eligible for work assignments and allows screening within 24 hours for people detained by law enforcement for a crime. This can allow them to be diverted to a mental health facility instead. 

“And I think if you talk to a lot of people in law enforcement, and obviously you have a lot of really dangerous criminals, they just need to be kept off the street,” DeSantis said. “But a lot of people that interact with the justice system, the root cause is not that they’re bad people trying to harm others, it’s that they’ve got a lot of mental health problems that are leading to behavior that is antisocial, and so to the extent that we can do that and identify that and potentially provide solutions for that, that’s going to ultimately be better for taxpayers, it’ll be better for the entire justice system, and it’ll be better for the safety of our community.”