Virginia legislative commission finds competency restoration is crowding civil patients out of state hospitals
Staff of the Virginia Behavioral Health Commission presented a review of competency restoration for misdemeanor defendants on December 13, 2022, based on interviews with community services boards, state hospital and DBHDS forensic staff, defense lawyers and judges, plus analysis of admission and census data. The central finding was that forensic admissions to state facilities grew by nearly 50 percent from fiscal 2014 to fiscal 2022, absorbed mostly by Eastern and Western State Hospitals, and that competency restoration was the main driver, with the average restoration census up 144 percent.
Forensic patients occupied 53 percent of state facility beds in fiscal 2022 on a partial-year average, up from 37 percent in fiscal 2014, and Eastern and Central State were roughly 80 percent forensic. The staff said this was crowding out patients under civil temporary detention orders and contributing to a wait list that began in September 2021.
The briefing also assessed Virginia's 2022 diversion law for incompetent misdemeanor defendants, finding that 15 orders had been issued under it so far, partly because of implementation problems, and that some other states divert a broader group of defendants.
Source: Commission Meeting December 2022 — Virginia Behavioral Health Commission
← Back to the map