North Carolina health department recommends ending local evaluators and piloting jail-based capacity restoration
The report to the legislative oversight committees on health and on justice grew out of a workgroup of criminal justice and behavioral health representatives. A survey of court stakeholders rated evaluations by state hospital forensic staff, mainly at Central Regional Hospital, more favorably than those by local evaluators, with timeliness, bias, evaluator qualifications and report thoroughness the main concerns. The department recommended eliminating the local evaluator system and creating pretrial evaluation programs at Cherry and Broughton Hospitals matching the existing center at Central Regional.
It also recommended a pilot jail-based capacity restoration program in counties with many state hospital admissions of defendants found incapable to proceed, new communication forms and a hearing-tracking tool to meet statutory timelines, and options for sharing hospital bed costs with counties, citing a $106.92 daily close-custody rate. The workgroup did not reach consensus on cost sharing.
Source: Study on the Lack of Capacity to Proceed Process: Recommendations for Improvements to the Incapacity to Proceed (ITP) System in North Carolina — North Carolina General Assembly (report to Joint Legislative Oversight Committees), by North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services
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