Bow Hampton’s long wait for psychiatric treatment began last year after he was accused of attacking his adoptive father and charged with misdemeanor.
This story was also published in Georgia Health News and Kaiser Health News.
18-year-old Hampton, with a long history of mental illness, sat in a prison east of Atlanta for four months, waiting for experts to assess whether he could mentally withstand the trial. In February, state psychologists realized that Hampton was incompetent.
After that, Hampton had to wait to be placed in a state mental hospital, so he was able to receive treatment to meet the legal standards of competence. Delays in his treatment irritated Walton County judges, and Hampton’s condition worsened in a crowded prison, and he ordered a transfer to a state hospital within 24 hours in March. The Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disorders, which operates these mental hospitals, did not comply, and the judge detained the agency secretary for contempt of court a month later.
Delay is standard
Such long delays in state mental hospital services are unfolding in prisons throughout the United States. People in prisons who have a serious mental illness and cannot tolerate the trial because of their condition wait months or even a year or more to begin receiving the care needed to “recover” their ability to stand in court. I am. The legal standard is that individuals charged with crime must be able to participate in their defense.
In Georgia, the state says 368 people who were considered incompetent were sitting in local prisons waiting for treatment to be tried. Over 900 people are waiting for the first step in the process, a “forensic evaluation.”
Similar delays have caused proceedings in many other states.
In May, the Indiana Protection and Advocacy Services Commission filed a proceeding against state authorities over delays in psychiatric services, alleging that the delays violated the defendant’s due process rights. Oregon is facing a strict deadline set in the 2002 proceedings, with 55 backlogs as of May 20.
Alabama faces a consent decree, but “people are waiting an average of hundreds of days to be admitted to a facility to receive these assessments or treatments,” said Alabama’s senior disability advocacy program. Attorney Shandra Monterasteri said. ..
North Carolina’s waiting list for “recovery” treatment has grown to 140, with 364 waiting in Colorado (another state under a consent decree). In Texas, the numbers are much higher, over 2,000, and there is a backlog that caused the proceedings. Dozens of people were waiting in Montana.
Michele Ditch, a criminal justice expert at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson Public Service School, said:
“Clear constitutional issues”
According to a 2020 report from the National Association of State Mental Health Program Director, more than 2 million people with serious mental illness are nationwide each year due to nonviolent “jamming” crimes such as wandering and wandering. Has been put in jail. Once in jail, people with mental illness are imprisoned twice as long as other defendants, and few are treated for the condition, the report said.
Philip Fornaci, senior lawyer at the National Disability Rights Network, said people with mental illness usually get worse in prison while waiting for a long time in a psychiatric hospital bed. “It’s an obvious constitutional issue,” he said. “The prison is a really chaotic, pretty violent place.”
For some people accused of misdemeanor, waiting for what is known as inpatient capacity recovery was that the individual was tried, convicted, and sentenced for such charges. It could be longer than it is, said Dr. Robert Trestman, chairman of the American Psychiatric Association Council. Healthcare system and funding.
State officials say that delays in transfers to inpatient care facilities increased during the pandemic as the shortage of state hospital staff worsened. However, several proceedings, including Alabama, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington, were filed years before covid-19 surfaced.
Shannon Scully, senior adviser to the National Alliance of Mental Illness Family Justice and Crisis Response Policy, said the delay in the recovery of the defendant’s mental abilities could be exacerbated as the shortage of mental health providers continued. Said.
Loss of personnel causes more delay
In Georgia, the state’s mental health agency states that it has caused a net loss of nearly one-third of psychiatric hospital staff since January 2020. Temporary workers are filling vacant seats, but the state is the ability of people in custody.
According to court documents, Bo Hampton has a history of psychiatric care since the age of three and includes multiple hospitalizations. He has been described as having a diagnosis of autism, bipolar disorder, and other mental health.
In March, while detained in Walton County Jail, Hampton was injured in the battle and needed a seam. He also faced a felony assault and a misdemeanor battery charge in a nearby county.
However, state officials said Hampton did not make it to the top of the waiting list for inpatient treatment, despite court orders, age, diagnosis, and difficulties in prison. This list is based on the date of someone’s hospitalization order and the patient’s condition.
The average waiting period for male prisoners in Georgia who need such care is 10 months, state officials said in a court hearing on the Hampton case in April. Judge Cheveda McCamy gave the state 21 days under an insulting order to put Hampton in the hospital.
I couldn’t ask Hampton for comment. Julia Holly, a public lawyer assigned to his proceedings, said questions about her abilities spent much of her time, not actual criminal accusations. Because of Hampton’s age and condition, and his participation in foster care, she said the incident was “most traumatic to my heart.” “He deserves a chance,” she added.
Prisons like Walton County feel the burden of caring for people with mental illness. Such prisoners often cannot afford bail or deposits, and small prisons have less service than large prisons, Trestman said. The prison was “not a place designed for treatment,” he added. “It’s not a warm and ambiguous environment.”
Captain Terry Maze, the administrator of Wayne County Prison in southeastern Georgia, said the cost of accommodating people with mental illness was much higher, about four times higher than others.
In southwestern Georgia, Lieutenant Stephen Jones, acting administrator of Thomas County Prison, said a man had waited for such an arrangement for over a year. Meanwhile, Jones said the man jumped off his railing, broke his ankles, injured his spine and attempted suicide. Bed delays in psychiatric hospitals were “extremely long,” Jones said.
Faster treatment outside the facility
Experts said it might make sense to get treatment more quickly in the community, especially in the case of misdemeanor crimes. And some states are working to increase outpatient treatment.
Neil Gowenssmith, an associate professor of forensic psychology at the University of Denver, said there are several benefits to rehabilitating outpatients. “It’s much cheaper,” he said. “Public security is not at stake. Humanely, it is a matter of civil liberty.”
He quoted the 1999 Supreme Court ruling Olmsted vs. LCA groundbreaking decision to support the least restrictive levels of care for people with disabilities. “It’s a group home, a supervised life arrangement, and can be an independent living,” Gowenssmith said.
South Carolina passed a law this year allowing both outpatient and prison-based recovery options.
Georgia has limited outpatient service options. In a statement, Ashley Fielding, assistant commissioner of the state’s mental health agency, cited the increased salary increases and non-hospital recovery options given to all state employees to “solve” the capacity backlog. We are actively working on measures. “
On the 20th day of the Walton County Judge’s contempt order (one day before the deadline), the agency transferred Hampton to the Milledgeville State Psychiatric Facility. The state mental health agency refused to comment on the case, except that it had followed the judge’s order. More than eight months have passed since Hampton was arrested.
KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national news room that produces detailed journalism on health issues. KHN is one of the three main operational programs of KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation), along with policy analysis and polling. KFF is a donated non-profit organization that provides the public with information on health issues.
