07 Feb Iris Eytan and the Jail Wait Team not giving up to get help to the broken mental health system
Independent Monitor: State’s Plan For Addressing Mentally Ill In Jail Is ‘Scattershot’
February 7, 2019
BY ALLISON SHERRY
CPR News
Colorado Department of Human Services lacks a cohesive plan to deal with hundreds of mentally ill people facing criminal charges who are deemed incompetent to stand trial, and many of the department’s solutions so far are causing great harm, an independent monitor with oversight of the agency told a federal judge.
Colorado doesn’t have enough in-patient beds for all the mentally ill in the justice system, but simply adding capacity across the state won’t solve the crush of people waiting sometimes months in jail for competency treatment before they can go to court, the monitor said in a report that was just unsealed by federal Magistrate Judge Nina Wang.
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