unconstitutional for Texas to leave mentally incompetent jail detainees waiting in jail for months<\/a> before getting the treatment they need to stand trial.<\/p>\nThis decision rightly recognizes that people with severe mental illness should not be left to languish in jail because treatment is unavailable.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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But it also exposes the impossible math facing Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to figures from the Dallas County Criminal Justice Department, in June there were on average of 338 incompetent detainees waiting for a transfer to a state mental health facility and on average 33 detainees whose competency evaluation to allow their case to move forward was still pending.<\/p>\n
The new Dallas hospital can help reduce some of these backlogs, but it isn\u2019t a permanent solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n
America\u2019s mental health system has spent decades moving away from consistent investment in psychiatric institutions. Many state hospitals in the 20th century were plagued by poor conditions, overcrowding and questionable treatment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But we\u2019ve swung too far in the other direction. Closing hospitals without replacing them with other forms of inpatient and community-based treatment has left many people with severe mental illness cycling between a difficult-to-navigate patchwork of care, homelessness and county jails.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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We cannot accept that people experiencing mental health crises or drug addiction are left untreated because there is nowhere for them to go.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas has demonstrated a willingness to invest in mental healthcare. Congress should recognize that expanding inpatient and outpatient psychiatric capacity is also a national responsibility.<\/p>\n
That means increasing federal investment for psychiatric hospitals and making sure states have the resources to provide treatment before people reach the point of crisis. And for individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others, carefully crafted civil commitment laws are also a part of the continuum of care.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Texas can build and staff hospitals, but it cannot fix the nation\u2019s mental health emergency on its own.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Have an opinion about this?<\/strong> Send a letter to the editor using our letters form<\/a> or email letters@dallasnews.com. Letters should be no more than 200 words and include the first and last name of the writer and city of residence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Behavioral Health Center, a new state psychiatric hospital in Dallas, pictured on June 16. Chitose Suzuki\/The Dallas…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":945450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,358,336930,326777,336118,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-945449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-america","tag-dallas","tag-texas","tag-tp-editorials","tag-tp-dallas-county","tag-tp-mental-health","tag-tx","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116946772039843801","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}