and instead they were sending him back to wait for a bed to open up at a group home
They were sending him back to wait for his final hearing once he'd been made "competent". Sending him to a group home etc., would have had to wait until the judge officially agreed to a deferred disposition. It's possible (highly probable, actually) that Heilberg was trying to get something lined up for Chris in advance of that inevitable deferred disposition, but it looks like he was unsuccessful. If they wanted to send him to a tard home directly from Western (assuming Heilberg managed to find one), the court would have had to revisit the terms of his bail (grant him bail), and they weren't going to waste the time at that point.
People don’t seem to understand how limited the space is in these places.
It's even more limited than that.
Believe it or not, there are people who need beds in mental hospitals more than Chris does.
And deserve the beds more.
Jail has more space than group homes and hospitals.
Jail is also more "full service", in the sense that it's mostly no service but does take all comers.
It is also very much the case that the judicial system/courts/jails have become the de facto mental health providers of last resort.
They're more mental health managers than providers, because our criminal justice system is more capable (though only from a legal standpoint) of managing the real problem cases. Our actual mental health providers all too often have their hands tied. In other words, the criminal justice system has the authority to deal with mental health problems, but only as criminals, while the mental health providers have the capability, but not the authority.
It's like the voters believe it will be "lobotomies for all" unless we let the lunatics run the asylum. They can't wrap their heads around the idea that we need a wide range of mental health options available for the wide range of mental health issues that are out there. So instead they just vote for whatever makes them feel the most good and virtuous at the time, and never, ever recognize the consequences of their vote.
As ill prepared as the criminal justice system is for dealing with mental health problems, the average voter is even less qualified to make mental health decisions. And I should stop here before I start really ranting.
Instead we have an expensive, faulty, inadequate and much too small network of private care homes.
Who aren't given any discretion in how they deal with problem cases. Some crazies really do need to be locked up. Others only need to be made to take their meds. Some just need the occasional reminder that they're not actually Napoleon.
Of course a lot of states and municipalities have recently discovered a brilliant new way of dealing with the worst of their mental health problems. They ship them to Seattle or Portland or San Francisco. Let Dr. Greyhound cure what ails ya. What could possibly go wrong?
> Officials believe missing Portland man may be dangerous, violent
Portland Man is becoming almost as bad as Florida Man.
But seriously, for fuck's sake. Case in point:
> PSRB says Orr may be intoxicated and is without his medications meaning he may become dangerous in the coming days.
Yet he can't be compelled by the private residential mental health care provider to take those medications. Because reasons.
