By Laura Waxmann, San Francisco Examiner, September 5, 2019
San Francisco’s shortage of mental health beds could be leaving some mentally ill jail inmates who have been ordered into treatment waiting behind bars months longer than necessary.
The San Francisco Examiner has learned that the Public Defender’s Office last week subpoenaed Department of Public Health officials seeking information on the cases of eight conserved and incarcerated clients.
In at least one case, an incarcerated person represented by the Public Defender’s Office has been waiting nine months since ordered into conservatorship to be placed in an appropriate care setting. Kara Chien, Managing Attorney of the Mental Health Unit at the Public Defender’s Office, said that while conserved clients should ideally be placed “immediately after they have been conserved,” a 90-day wait is “not unheard of for processing.”
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