Tennessee ranks in the bottom five states for psychiatric bed space, according to a new report by the Treatment Advocacy Center.
Wednesday’s report finds that the average psychiatric patient in Tennessee waits 60 days in jail for placement within a state hospital.
That trend has been getting worse in recent years; the number of psychiatric beds in the state has dropped 9% since 2016.
Most beds in the state are occupied by individuals who have been judged unfit to stand trial because of a mental illness or intellectual disability, and, on average, they stay much longer than civil patients.
In the survey, Tennessee was one of two states to explicitly say that patients who are judged unfit to stand trial often stay in state hospitals for life. These patients can remain in the hospital years longer than they would have been in prison for the same crime if they did not have a mental illness.
Tennessee’s state hospitals may see an influx in funding this year, as bills related to involuntary commitment are seeing renewed bipartisan support. The Tennessee House’s Criminal Justice Subcommittee on Tuesday passed a bill that would earmark $3.3 million in state funding for court-mandated mental health evaluation.
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