Pandemic deepens Washington's jail backlog of defendants found unfit to stand trial
Using state data filed in the Trueblood case, Crosscut found that from February through August 2020 only 55 of 753 treatment orders resulted in a transfer within the required seven days, and that in May only one of 58 defendants moved on time. About 200 more people were waiting outside jail. Attorneys described long stays that amounted to solitary confinement and said waiting worsens psychosis and depression.
Hospitals attributed the bottleneck to COVID-19 quarantine protocols and to 40 new beds at Western State that were delayed when construction was halted. A state attorney called the lingering effect a COVID hangover. Judge Pechman had told the state in August that too many people were deteriorating in custody.
The piece documents how a system that had never met the Trueblood timelines slipped further during the pandemic.
Source: Inmates with mental illness are illegally stuck in WA jails — Crosscut (now Cascade PBS), by David Kroman
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