When Abdullahi Mohamed died in Fort Worth, Texas, at Tarrant County Jail on June 25, 2020, he was only 40 years old. The medical examiner did not find a cause of death, according to the custodial death report. The only potentially helpful information released on Mr. Mohamed is that he likely suffered from mental health problems.

A watchdog group in Texas has acknowledged the fact that jails and prisons in Texas have become mental health warehouses. Counties struggle to provide care for the chronic needs of mentally ill prisoners. Treatment programs are far better equipped than jails to provide a stabilized situation for mental health issues. There is critical underfunding, however, of programs that can better make effective recommendations for medical treatment, supervised regimens of medication, and recommend programs to address mental health problems.

The watchdog group prepared a study and made the following suggestions and more:

• Compel behavioral health authorities in local jurisdictions to better prioritize individuals caught in the criminal justice system.
• Make sure that inmates in a mental health crisis have ready access to beds in a treatment area.
• Improve the system of information exchange between practitioners in the criminal justice system and local probation departments as well as parole agencies. The goal is to integrate a system of continuous care by providing substance abuse treatment, mental health services, and other medical services that are needed.

Learn more in Part 1 and this continuing series.

With the goal of helping inmates now or formerly held in a county jail in Texas, posts are provided on this website. There is never an intention to implicate persons or entities in wrongdoing.

–Guest Contributor