Maryland psychiatric hospitals are full, leaving dozens of court-ordered defendants stuck in jail
Maryland's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene told a judge in April 2016 that all its inpatient facilities were over capacity, and the Sun found dozens of charged defendants held in jails despite court orders to send them to state hospitals. As of the week before publication, 85 people referred by courts or jails were waiting for placement. About 80 percent of admissions to the state's psychiatric facilities came through the criminal justice system, and the state's inpatient capacity had fallen from roughly 3,000 beds in the 1980s to about 960.
The article centers on a 62-year-old woman who a Baltimore judge ordered to Clifton T. Perkins Hospital Center and who was turned away for lack of a bed. On the day the story ran, a lawyer filed a motion for a preliminary injunction on behalf of her and three others, and Judge Gale Rasin ordered six department officials to show cause why they should not be held in civil contempt. Baltimore County corrections officials said typical transfer delays were about seven days to Spring Grove and up to 30 to Perkins.
The case, Powell v. Maryland Department of Health, grew into the state's main court challenge over forensic bed shortages.
Source: With psychiatric beds full, mentally ill in Maryland are stuck in jails — The Baltimore Sun, by Michael Dresser
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