Missouri has more people seeking mental health treatment than mental hospital beds to go around. The state has about 450 people in jail awaiting mental healthcare – an increase of about 200 since 2023.
Jeanette Simmons, Deputy Director for the Division of Behavioral Health with the state Department of Mental Health, said the lack of beds is a result of an increase in requests to determine if crime suspects are incompetent to stand trial.
“As those numbers continue to increase, more people are being found incompetent to stand trial, which then increases this number,” she said.
Until a few years ago, the number of pretrial mental health evaluations completed was around 600, compared to 972 last fiscal year.
“And so, as we’ve had that increase, that is also correlated with the increase in the wait list,” she said.
According to Simmons, the average wait time for a person in jail awaiting treatment is about 14 months.
“We don’t like having these folks waiting,” said Simmons. “It is something the department thinks about. I can tell you that it is something I wake up thinking about and something I go to bed thinking about. It is something we are actively trying to figure out ways to better serve these individuals.”
The state has mental hospitals in St. Joseph, Kansas City, Fulton, St. Louis, and Farmington. Missouri is building a new 200-bed mental hospital in Kansas City.
To ease the backlog, the department is reviewing whether to expand diversion options for lower-level offenses. It is also sending a mobile team into jails to provide treatment to people awaiting mental healthcare and looking at avenues to expand in-patient and outpatient restoration opportunities. In addition, the state hopes to grow preventative efforts through crisis intervention measures before people commit crimes.
“988, for example, the behavioral health crisis centers that are open across the state, are really vital to keeping people out of the justice system and ensuring that they get the treatment services that they need,” she said.
Simmons said the department is also especially in need of additional social workers. She said they are in high demand in the public and private sectors.
Copyright © 2025 · Missourinet