Half of North Carolina defendants found incapable to proceed waited 313+ days for a hospital bed, WFAE finds
In the first part of its Fractured series, WFAE reported that because the state does not track actual wait times, the station assembled its own data covering roughly 63 percent of the state's population from 2016 through 2023. It found that half of those accused of felonies waited more than 313 days in custody for a hospital bed, and more than 363 days in the western part of the state.
The station reported 201 inmates waiting for one of the state's 894 psychiatric hospital beds, according to the health department, with only about 600 of the beds operating because of pandemic-related staffing problems. It traced one Charlotte man's years of cycling between jail and hospitals after a 2018 arrest, including a 14-month wait for a bed.
The series pointed to an in-jail restoration pilot at the Mecklenburg County detention center as one response.
Source: Part 1: The wait inmates with mental illness endure because they're too sick for trial — WFAE (Charlotte), by Dana Miller Ervin
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