Houston misdemeanor defendants wait in jail for mental hospital transfer as forensic beds crowd out civil care
The Houston Press followed people who cycle through the Harris County jail on petty charges after doctors find them permanently incompetent to stand trial. Their cases are dismissed and a judge orders civil commitment, but the local psychiatric center is usually full, so they wait behind bars with no charges pending. The paper reviewed all 145 such misdemeanor cases from 2015: the typical wait was about a week, at least three people waited 20 days or more, and one man waited just over a month.
The article places those waits inside a larger bed shortage. Advocates and a county public defender psychiatrist described a system rationing scarce beds, while state data showed Texas already devoted more state hospital capacity to restoring defendants to competency than to civil patients. The high-profile wait of the man charged in the killing of a Harris County sheriff's deputy, who was found incompetent in February 2016 and was 61st on the jail's transfer list, was cited as the event that drew lawmakers' attention.
The story also points to a $5 million state grant for a Harris County diversion program and a Disability Rights Texas lawyer's warning that other counties often leave charges pending indefinitely for people who may never be restorable.
Source: Why Texas's Most Vulnerable Mentally Ill Patients Are Waiting In Jail For Help — Houston Press, by Meagan Flynn
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