Illinois jails hold defendants found unfit for trial while state hospitals report no open beds
WTTW News reported in October 2016 that between 20 and 40 Cook County defendants at any given time were found unfit to stand trial yet remained in the county jail for weeks or months instead of moving to a state mental health facility. At the time of the story, 20 people were waiting, including a woman who had been held 77 days, and the Illinois Department of Human Services said none of its facilities had an available bed. Outside Cook County, 87 defendants in suburban and downstate jails were waiting an average of 40 days.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart described his jail as the country's largest mental health institution, and the head of the Illinois Sheriffs' Association called the situation illegal and suggested the state's mental health director be held in contempt. The piece tied the delays to the long decline in state psychiatric capacity, noting that a planned shift would dedicate 44 beds at Elgin Mental Health Center to prisoners needing treatment, which raised its own concerns about civilian patients.
State Rep. Lou Lang said he would convene a task force on the state's mental health system. The story is an early, concrete record of the jail-waiting problem that sheriffs in Illinois would keep litigating and legislating over for years.
Source: Human Service Backlog Leaves Mentally Ill Sitting in Jail — WTTW News, by Paris Schutz
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