Wyoming sheriffs for years have been frustrated with the amount of time they’re holding inmates in their jails after judges order them sent to the state mental hospital for evaluation and treatment. Now, they want lawmakers to force the Department of Health to foot the bill, WyoFile reports. Uinta County Sheriff Andy Kopp wrote in an email that the state’s jails were housing people with mental illnesses “more than ever,” and were doing so for long periods, challenging staff, costing counties hundreds of thousands of dollars and keeping incarcerated people themselves from the care they need. “Without timely and adequate resources or support systems, many of these individuals continue to suffer and deteriorate more,” Kopp wrote. Wyoming has one of the highest rates of jail suicides in the nation, according to a WyoFile investigation that examined the problem in 2023. Fourteen of the state’s 23 sheriffs joined Kopp in signing the letter. The sheriffs are particularly vexed by holding people whom judges have ordered to the state hospital for a mental competency evaluation ahead of their trial, or in some cases to be treated until that competency is restored. Those orders are supposed to kick off transfer to the hospital, which is in Evanston, within 10 days.
But the Wyoming State Hospital has long-running capacity issues driven by staffing levels and, according to a health department spokesperson, increasing demand on the hospital’s 104 beds from the judicial system. Only 25% of those beds are dedicated to patients arriving through the criminal justice system, whom agency spokesperson Kim Deti said are kept separate from people who aren’t accused of crimes. In the Uinta County jail, just three miles away, people ordered into the state hospital are often incarcerated for months waiting on a bed, Kopp told WyoFile in a phone interview Wednesday. There have been times when his jail has held people for six months prior to a stay at the state hospital. In some cases, he said, that’s the length of the jail sentence they would face if convicted at trial. “They’re sitting in jail for six months waiting to get their evaluation and when they come back they’ve already done their time in jail,” Kopp said. Meanwhile, their mental health issues go untreated. Guarding people in the midst of often spiraling mental health crises — and in many cases protecting them from self harm — is a difficult burden for jail staff, who aren’t health experts. It’s also a drain on counties’ often-strapped budgets. Kopp and the other sheriffs who signed the letter believe the cost of housing people when the state hospital can’t take them within 10 days shouldn’t fall on local governments. The hospital’s capacity issues are a state problem, those sheriffs say, and so the state should pay the costs.