North Carolina defendants wait about six months in jail for hospital beds as capacity-to-proceed demand climbs
Using state health department data, NC Health News reported that the average wait for admission to one of three state psychiatric hospitals for capacity restoration is 173 days, with 157 people on the waitlist in early 2025, down from a peak of 213 in June 2023. The article follows a man who spent nearly a year in a county jail waiting for a bed. Incapable-to-proceed patients made up 10 percent of hospital admissions in fiscal 2016 and 28 percent in fiscal 2024, and nearly a third of current hospital patients are in that group.
Demand for evaluations has grown by a third over five years to more than 2,600 in 2024, and seven of nine forensic evaluators at Central Regional Hospital left in the past year. The state has put $7.2 million into three detention-based restoration pilots and about $1.9 million into community pilots, while the state defends the 2024 federal lawsuit by Disability Rights NC and the ACLU.
The story is a comprehensive snapshot of the capacity bottleneck as the state tries jail- and community-based alternatives.
Source: NC defendants with mental illness wait months in jail for court-ordered treatment — North Carolina Health News, by Rachel Crumpler
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