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The system

By CHRIS TISCH
Published January 6, 2007

How a county jail inmate is declared mentally incompetant:

Step 1: Arrest

A mentally ill person is arrested on a felony charge and booked into a county jail. Typically, the inmate is unable to make bail and often is isolated in a closely watched single cell.

Step 2: Evaluation

A defense lawyer retains a doctor to evaluate whether the person is incompetent, meaning he or she suffers from a mental disorder that prevents the inmate from participating in his defense. If the doctor finds the person incompetent, prosecutors can hire their own doctor. If the two doctors conflict, a judge appoints a third doctor.

Step 3: Incompetence

If the majority of doctors say the person is incompetent, the judge can order the person into a treatment program. If the person poses a threat to the community or needs to be housed in a secure environment, the judge will order the person transferred to a state mental hospital.

Step 4: Treatment

The Department of Children and Families is supposed to transfer the inmate to a hospital within 15 days of receiving the judge's order, though the average waiting time has grown to three months. The inmates eventually are taken to one of three state hospitals with secure treatment beds that cost more than $100,000 per year each.

Step 5: Re-evaluation

Doctors at the state hospital may determine that the person has regained competency and send him or her back to the local jail, where it's not uncommon for the inmate to relapse. If the inmate remains competent, he or she goes to trial. If the inmate does not regain competency after five years, the charge can be dismissed. The judge can order the inmate to remain committed at a state hospital or can release the inmate into community treatment with various levels of supervision.

[Last modified January 6, 2007, 00:38:06]