Officials in Mississippi have noted that a newly enacted law aimed at reducing the incarceration of individuals who require mental health treatment has reportedly resulted in fewer people with serious mental health issues being detained in jails. However, the gathered data regarding this law remains inconsistent and incomplete.
Various entities involved in implementing the new law—including a state agency, counties, and community mental health facilities—have reported drastically different statistics regarding the number of individuals jailed during the civil commitment process within the initial three months of the law’s enactment. For instance, community mental health centers disclosed that 43 individuals were jailed between July and September 2024, significantly lower than the Department of Mental Health’s count of 102 individuals. The figures from the Department are likely to be underestimated, as they only include those who were later admitted to state hospitals, neglecting individuals who were jailed briefly before being released or treated at other facilities.
Department of Mental Health spokesperson Adam Moore was unable to clarify the reasons behind these differing statistics. Furthermore, counties in Mississippi have struggled to report commitment data reliably since lawmakers mandated the transmission of psychiatric commitment data from chancery courts to the state in 2023. A mere 43 out of 82 chancery court clerks complied with this reporting requirement, and those who did reported a total of only 25 individuals held in jail during the civil commitment process for the same timeframe.
Some counties, including Alcorn, Choctaw, Holmes, Issaquena, Kemper, and Sharkey, have yet to report any data to the state regarding this matter. When approached for insights, Choctaw County Chancery Clerk Steve Montgomery admitted he was unaware of this reporting failure.
“It’s inconsistent, and there are areas where data submissions are sporadic or even absent altogether,” remarked Rep. Sam Creekmore IV, a Republican from New Albany and chair of the Public Health and Human Services Committee. He expressed frustration at the difficulty of gauging the effectiveness of the new measures due to unreliable data. Creekmore has been a proponent of amendments to Mississippi’s civil commitment laws and plans to propose further legislative action to ensure that more counties fulfill their data reporting obligations.
“It becomes nearly impossible to legislate improvements to the new civil commitment laws when the available data is not comprehensive,” he stated. After the civil commitment law underwent revisions last year, Creekmore observed that the Department of Mental Health was supposed to oversee compliance among counties. Instead, the agency has indicated a focus on educating local authorities and mental health workers but not on enforcing compliance.
The Department of Mental Health has taken steps to remind clerks of reporting deadlines and offered training resources, but challenges in ensuring comprehensive reporting continue to exist. This new law, which came into effect in July 2024, aims to shift how individuals perceived as a risk to themselves or others are handled, requiring local community mental health center staff to assess individuals before they are placed into custody. Under this law, individuals are not to be jailed unless every alternative has been explored and must not remain incarcerated for over 48 hours.
The legislation advocates for individuals in crisis to first receive assistance from mental health professionals. The screeners hold the authority to recommend alternatives to civil commitment, thereby potentially sidestepping the entire process if voluntary treatment options are appropriate. Early reports indicate over 500 individuals were directed toward less restrictive treatment, and approximately 1,330 screenings were conducted statewide in the three months following the law’s implementation.
According to Moore, the wait times for individuals ordered for state hospital admission have decreased by a day and a half, yet there remains uncertainty about the duration individuals might experience waiting in jail prior to a judge’s order for commitment. Butch Scipper, the chancery clerk of Quitman County since 1992, remarked on the law as being the most significant change since he assumed office, with many local officials praising the new policy for its potential to reduce the reliance on jails for housing people with mental illnesses awaiting treatment.
Most states do not habitually detain individuals without criminal charges during the civil commitment process. At least 12 states and the District of Columbia have outright banned this practice, and by 2023, only one jail in Mississippi was state-certified to hold individuals awaiting court-ordered psychiatric treatment. Sheriffs have generally been supportive of the new law, asserting that the presence of individuals with mental health issues in jails is both inappropriate and unsafe.
However, the implementation of the law has faced hurdles, particularly in regions lacking resources, especially those without crisis stabilization units to provide short-term treatment for individuals facing psychiatric crises. In areas with sufficient resources, similar limitations in crisis bed availability have forced counties to either transport individuals or utilize private treatment facilities at their own expense.
Community mental health centers reported that, between July and September 2024, they had to redirect patients due to limited bed capacity or staffing shortages on 114 occasions. Currently, there are 14 state-funded crisis stabilization units with a total of 204 beds available statewide, an increase from the previous year’s capacity. For counties such as Calhoun, located over 30 miles from the nearest crisis stabilization unit, the restrictions on jail housing present considerable complications.
Chancery Clerk Kathy Poyner noted the lack of facilities to house individuals in need of care: “We can’t afford a psychiatric cell, and rural counties are unable to shoulder those financial burdens,” she stated. Law enforcement must assume the responsibility for transporting individuals, a requirement which many counties argue can be both time-consuming and costly.
Moore contends that there are always available beds in crisis stabilization units across the state for sheriff’s departments willing to transport individuals. Creekmore has expressed intentions to propose a new bill aimed at introducing a pilot transportation program, modeled after a similar initiative in Tennessee, to alleviate the transportation costs related to mental health treatment transport.
Despite the additional funding provided by the Department of Mental Health to community health centers for various mental health services, the state does not cover transportation expenses incurred by law enforcement.
Allen pointed out that the responsibility for transportation is financially beneficial for sheriffs as the cost is comparatively lower than the liability risks associated with holding individuals experiencing acute mental health crises within jails. “This was the tradeoff; individuals won’t be jailed, but law enforcement must facilitate their transport,” he explained.
Some counties have begun exploring alternative approaches, including creating crisis stabilization units within closer proximity to their communities. DeSoto County, for example, plans to open a 16-bed stabilization unit in Hernando this year, a development initiated to address the challenges posed by distance from existing crisis centers, according to County Supervisor Lee Caldwell.
Nevertheless, several advocates for mental health care have cautioned that the law needs more rigorous oversight. They pointed out that there are no provisions to ensure that counties only detain individuals who genuinely meet the stringent criteria outlined in the law, nor is there any mechanism to ensure compliance with the 48-hour limit on detention.
Greta Martin, litigation director for Disability Rights Mississippi, expressed her concerns regarding the lack of oversight: “If legislation sets a 48-hour maximum for detaining individuals in jails but lacks any oversight to guarantee compliance by county jails, what purpose does the legislation serve?” she questioned.
