After Dayton shooting, Ohio governor floats shifting low-level defendants out of state psychiatric hospitals
The Appeal reported that roughly 79 percent of the 1,200 or so adults in Ohio's state psychiatric hospitals were there by court order, and nearly a quarter of them faced nonviolent misdemeanor charges. Under existing practice, misdemeanor defendants sent for restoration can be held up to 60 days, and the article quoted experts saying many get little effective treatment in that time.
DeWine's package pointed toward outpatient community programs and short residential stays with discharge planning instead of hospital beds that cost around $1,000 a day. A NAMI Ohio official described the hospitals as an expensive holding place rather than a treatment setting.
The piece is an early public statement of the reform argument that later produced Ohio's 2021 outpatient-restoration law: keep scarce forensic beds for the people who need them and move low-level cases elsewhere.
Source: Ohio Governor Wants to Detain Fewer Mentally Ill People Before Trial — The Appeal, by Kira Lerner
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