When criminal suspects are deemed too mentally ill to go through the court process and their charges are dropped, they can be left without stabilizing treatment — and sometimes end up being charged with additional crimes.
A bipartisan U.S. Senate agreement on guns that focuses on mental health raises hopes and doubts in rural Western states with high suicide rates and easy access to guns.
People in jail who have serious mental illness and cannot stand trial because of their condition are waiting months, or even more than a year, to get into their state psychiatric hospitals.
The deadly synthetic opioid has spread across the nation during the pandemic, and the problem is disproportionately affecting Native Americans.
More people have visited emergency departments for eating disorders during the pandemic. Those living in rural areas have limited pathways to treatment.
Nearly all psychiatric residential treatment centers for children in South Carolina operate as for-profit businesses — some backed by private equity — and many prioritize out-of-state kids because it’s better for the bottom line. The scramble to secure treatment for children and teenagers has become so competitive that South Carolina will spend millions more each year as of April 1 to keep out-of-state patients from flooding the state’s treatment facilities.
A backlog at Montana’s psychiatric hospital for those facing criminal charges has left people with serious mental illness behind bars for months without adequate treatment. In some cases, judges have freed defendants over due-process violations.
Without a federal law governing private, for-profit residential programs for children with behavioral problems, regulation has been left to the states. But even in states that have sought to increase oversight, deaths and controversial tactics such as seclusion still happen.
In California, health insurers blame long waits for therapy appointments on workforce shortages, but state lawmakers say that’s an excuse. A new law requires insurers to reduce wait times for mental health appointments to no more than 10 business days.
The Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes are working with academics and policy experts on possible solutions. Their challenge is how to attract the needed mental health personnel to the remote reservation.