Hundreds of mentally ill detainees incarcerated across California in recent years have languished in jail long after being declared incompetent to stand trial.
It was 2020, and he thought his downstairs neighbor was spying on him. They exchanged words, and she called the cops. He was arrested on suspicion of making a verbal threat and booked into a Kern County jail.
At the heart of the problem is a persistent failure by state officials to sufficiently expand state hospitals or other community-based care options despite surging numbers of incompetent criminal detainees and a string of court orders mandating the state transfer such defendants out of jails faster. In the ACLU case, known as Stiavetti vs. Clendenin, the families have lambasted state officials for allowing the mistreatment to persist for years despite claiming mental health as a legislative and budgetary priority. They have accused the state and some of its local counterparts not only of violating detainees’ constitutional rights, but exacerbating their mental health issues by denying them care.
State officials did not meet last month’s deadline, and they have told the court it will be “impossible” to meet the other intermediary deadlines because the pandemic is “catastrophically frustrating its ability to provide services to its patient population.” They point to the state’s history of violating court orders mandating better care for the mentally ill. They note the problem of unconstitutional wait times predated the pandemic. They say the state’s suggestion that it will somehow meet the 28-day requirement in 2024 without hitting the intermediate benchmarks is nonsensical. And they have criticized the state’s “jail-based” competency programs as a poor alternative to hospitals or community placements.
Kim Pederson, a senior attorney with Disability Rights California, said leaving mentally ill people behind bars without treatment does not simply delay their care, but will “exacerbate any preexisting mental health condition” they have.
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