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Pandemic As Opportunity For Competence Restoration Decarceration, Susan A. Mcmahon

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Before the pandemic, a defendant found incompetent to stand trial was often stranded in jail for weeks or months as she waited for an inpatient bed to open at a psychiatric facility. While there, she usually received no treatment, her mental health deteriorated, and she was astonishingly likely to be abused and neglected. She almost certainly came out of jail in a worse state than she was when she went in.

The pandemic has made this desperate situation even worse. Now that wait in jail is both longer, as many psychiatric facilities stopped accepting new patients as they dealt with …