Michigan health department reports the average wait for forensic hospital admission fell from 157 to 137 days in 2020
Michigan's fiscal 2021 appropriations act requires the health department to report each March 1 on wait times for people found incompetent to stand trial. The 2021 report says the average wait before admission to the Center for Forensic Psychiatry was 157 days in 2019 and 137 days in 2020, and that for other state-operated psychiatric facilities it was almost 96 days in 2019 and 89 days in 2020.
The average number of people waiting for services at the Center fell from almost 122 in 2019 to 30 in 2020. The department's stated goal is a decrease of at least 10 percent in days waited and in the number waiting. The report also says 168 people found not guilty by reason of insanity or incompetent to stand trial were discharged to community settings in 2020 after an average wait of 121 days, and that 29 people were removed from the Center's waitlist before admission.
The document is a primary budget-accountability report rather than news coverage, but it is one of the few official year-over-year measures of Michigan's forensic waitlist.
Source: Outcomes and Performance Measures — Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
← Back to the map