With no hospital space available, mentally ill languish in Texas jails

AUSTIN, Texas — Though a judge deemed her mentally unfit to stand trial 14 months ago, Jennifer Lampkin is still sitting in an Austin jail cell because there are no free spots for her at the state’s psychiatric hospitals.

Lampkin, 35, has both intellectual disabilities and a mental illness, and without treatment, the court couldn’t reassess her competency to stand trial on an assault charge for allegedly slapping a child, which might at least allow her case to progress.

“I don’t think she understands why she remains in jail,” said her attorney, Elsie Craven. “She’s stressed because she doesn’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t believe she’s getting the treatment she needs. How could she? She’s in jail.”

Lampkin is one of hundreds of mentally ill Texas inmates who have been stuck in jail for months waiting for a spot at one of the state’s overcrowded and understaffed mental hospitals. Though such problems aren’t unique to Texas, its inmates face among the nation’s longest waits to receive psychiatric treatment and the problem is only getting worse despite recent efforts to improve the situation.

The average wait for a maximum security inmate to get in-patient psychiatric treatment has nearly doubled in the past two years, to 127 days, according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission.

For inmates like Lampkin with intellectual disabilities and a mental illness, the average wait is more than three times as long, at 417 days. That’s partly because the state only has one unit dedicated to the treatment of such inmates, said Beth Mitchell, the supervising attorney for the advocacy group Disability Rights Texas.