Alabama promised to improve psychiatric care for men charged with crimes. They still wait years

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 it the decree was issued, according to court documents released in September.

https://apnews.com/article/alabama-mental-health-jail-death-8ef2056f7a1d58360a78f71bbd435f3c