Texas Senate staff analysis: bill would steer misdemeanor defendants away from state hospital restoration to cut jail waits
The analysis opens by saying Texas's roughly 2,400 state inpatient psychiatric beds do not meet the need and that capacity for intensive care outside a hospital is lacking. It argues that people charged with nonviolent Class B misdemeanors, who face at most 180 days in jail, often wait in jail for a hospital bed and are restored after the maximum sentence has already run, so they would be better served in the community or in a civil bed.
The committee substitute would give counties clearer authority to offer restoration and maintenance in any safe, appropriate setting, including outpatient, community inpatient and jail settings; count time spent awaiting transfer to a jail-based program toward the cumulative cap on restoration; require courts to report evaluation counts monthly to the Office of Court Administration; and give trial preference to defendants restored to competency. It also proposes moving the legal-education part of restoration to a non-medical setting once a person is stabilized.
The document is a legislative staff analysis, not a record of the bill's final disposition.
Source: BILL ANALYSIS: C.S.S.B. 1183 — Texas Legislature Online, by Texas Senate Research Center
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