MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Fernando Clark spent the last 10 months of his life in a jail cell, waiting for psychiatric treatment a court ordered he undergo after he’d been arrested for stealing cigarettes and some fruit from a gas station.
He died while waiting for the treatment that never arrived, found unresponsive in his jail cell.
Clark was just one of hundreds of people across Alabama awaiting a spot in the state’s increasingly limited facilities, despite a consent decree requiring the state to address delays in evaluating and providing care for people suffering from mental illness who are charged with crimes.
Seven years since the federal agreement, the problem is only worse. The waitlist for the state’s sole secure psychiatric facility is almost five times longer than when the decree was issued, according to court documents released in September.
Sometimes arrestees are waiting years for placement in a facility designed to treat their illness and ensure they are healthy to go to court, a problem faced by many states around the country.
In Alabama, that means people charged with less serious crimes, like Clark, “spend more time waiting for a bed than if they had just pled guilty,” said Bill Van Der Pol, an attorney with the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, which won the federal consent decree.
Delayed progress
In 2010, the Department of Mental Health had its budget cut by $40 million in the wake of the recession. At least 10 state-run psychiatric facilities have closed over the past three decades, leaving only three inpatient facilities with a total of 504 beds, and just one where men facing criminal charges can receive treatment to restore them to competency.
The lawsuit that led to the consent decree was filed in 2016, alleging delays at every point in the process that violated constitutional due process.
The 2018 consent decree gave the state two years to complete all mental health evaluations and reports within 60 days of a court order. A man deemed incompetent for trial should be moved to Taylor Hardin within 30 days after that.
Taylor Hardin’s waitlist has grown to 273 men, up from approximately 60 men in 2017. The average wait is well over a year, and more than 30 people have been on the list for over two years.
A national issue
Nationally, the number of state hospital beds for adults with serious mental health issues is at a historic low, with over half occupied by individuals committed through the criminal legal system.
Similar issues are noted in various states, indicating systemic inadequacies that have persisted and worsened.
Impossible to get out
Jennifer Tompkins, a criminal defense attorney, emphasized that not only is there a shortage of beds, but the lengthy processes to receive treatment mean individuals may languish for years without receiving care.
Clark, who was 40 when he passed, had a history of mental illness, and his tragic fate illustrates the growing crisis in mental healthcare within the incarceration system.
Clark's case raises profound questions about the state's commitment to mental health care, the effectiveness of existing policies, and the obligation to provide timely treatment to vulnerable individuals.
“If you look at the number of beds we got and then the wait time, it’s still not enough,” said Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham, acknowledging the ongoing struggles faced by individuals like Clark.
