KXAN-led investigation finds at least 12 Texans died in jail awaiting competency treatment
The reporters, writing for the Center for Health Journalism about their KXAN investigation, say the state health commission could not tell them how many people on its waitlist were indigent or homeless, and it does not independently track deaths among those waiting. They found at least 12 deaths in jail over six years among defendants deemed incompetent.
Because the waitlist is treated as confidential, they built their data from court records, manually searching more than 2,230 cases across several counties. Their analysis also pointed to uneven race and ethnicity data from county to county.
The account is useful as a methods-and-findings record of what Texas did not know about its own waitlist during the pandemic surge.
Source: The waitlist for mental health help in Texas jails is a mess, with fatal consequences — USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, by David Barer and Josh Hinkle
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