Mentally ill inmates on the rise in California prisons and jails
By Jocelyn Wiener
CHCF Center for Health Reporting
Published: Sunday, May. 27, 2012
MODESTO – Inmates with serious mental illnesses deemed incompetent to stand trial are languishing in California jail cells for months as they wait for state hospital beds to open up, according to advocates, jail officials and family members.
State and county budget cuts to mental health programs are combining with prison realignment and a shrinking number of state hospital beds to exacerbate the problem, they say.
In many counties, seriously mentally ill inmates routinely wait three to six months in jail before a state hospital bed opens up, said Randall Hagar, director of government affairs for the California Psychiatric Association. He calls the situation, which he says has gotten worse in recent years, "tragic."
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