The lawsuit notes that many people found incompetent suffer from conditions that can present serious symptoms if left untreated. In county jails, staff are often underequipped and underprepared to offer the necessary level of care—potentially making inmates’ existing illnesses even worse.
Civil rights groups are suing Florida over its treatment of inmates with severe mental disabilities.
According to First Coast News, state law stipulates that inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial must be transferred to a mental health facility within 15 days of a judge’s order, with the process overseen by the Florida Department of Children and Families.
The lawsuit, filed by Disability Rights Florida, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Florida Justice Institute, claims that inmates found incompetent have instead “remained trapped in county jails” due to delays in the transfer process. Attorneys claim that there are anywhere between 650 and 850 inmates still waiting to be moved from jail to any one of the state’s five approved mental health hospitals.
Public data indicates that the average wait time hovers around 120 days from the receipt of a court determination of incompetence.
The lawsuit notes that many people found incompetent suffer from conditions that can present serious symptoms if left untreated. In county jails, staff are often underequipped and underprepared to offer the necessary level of care—potentially making inmates’ existing illnesses even worse.
“Instead of admitting [inmates] to state hospitals as required by law, DCF abandons these individuals with severe mental health disabilities—who are presumed innocent—to suffer for months at a time in under-resourced jails while their psychiatric symptoms deteriorate and they become even more difficult to treat,” the lawsuit alleges. “DCF’s treatment delays not only exacerbate the risks stemming from this vulnerable population’s disabling conditions, the delays also often cause physical and mental harm that would otherwise be avoided.”
“While languishing for months in jail without a criminal conviction,” the lawsuit says, “people found incompetent commonly suffer from debilitating symptoms… Many suffer severe injuries due to suicide attempts or act out as a result of their mental health disability, often leading to new criminal charge that perpetuate the cycle of decompensation. Some are subject to victimization and jail violence.”
Kelly Knapp, senior staff attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said in a statement to CBS News that Florida has been aware of transfer delays for at least 50 years, yet has chosen—time and time again—to ignore the problem.
“Denying people with serious mental illness access to court-ordered mental healthcare is both cruel and unconstitutional,” Knapp said. “Florida has known about this crisis for nearly 50 years, and yet every time the waitlist grows, the state’s answer remains the same: further delays. These individuals with mental health disabilities have not been convicted and are presumed innocent. Yet the state is punishing them by leaving them to deteriorate in jail cells instead of providing desperately needed treatment.”
Sources
Civil rights groups sue DCF for delaying transfer of jail inmates to mental health facilities
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