TITLE: This Mississippi Hospital Transfers Some Patients to Jail to Await Mental Health Treatment
https://www.propublica.org/article/baptist-desoto-hospital-civil-commitment-jail
EXCERPT: Baptist, the largest and oldest hospital in DeSoto County, sits right off the interstate amid big-box stores and chain hotels in Southaven, Mississippi. It’s the first place many residents think of when they need medical help. Since 2017, it has served as the drop-off point for the county’s crisis intervention team, which was established to give law enforcement a way to help people with mental illness without bringing them to jail.
But when people show up in the emergency department needing inpatient psychiatric treatment, they don’t get it at Baptist-DeSoto. Instead, a crisis coordinator sets about finding some other place for them. If patients agree to treatment, they may be able to go to a publicly funded crisis unit, the closest of which is 50 miles away, or to a private psychiatric hospital. If they don’t, the crisis coordinator pursues commitment, which means turning patients over to the Sheriff’s Department. And because the Sheriff’s Department usually won’t transport patients over a long distance multiple times for a court hearing and eventual treatment, those patients usually go to jail.
That was the case with Sydney Jones. After she arrived at the hospital in April 2023, a psychiatrist contracted by the hospital evaluated her and concluded that she needed inpatient treatment. Jones was prescribed antipsychotic medication, admitted to the hospital, placed in her own room and monitored by a security guard.
Meanwhile, a staffer for Region IV, the local nonprofit community mental health center that works with Baptist-DeSoto to place patients who need treatment, was trying to find someplace for Jones other than the hospital. Catherine Davis, the crisis coordinator, concluded that Jones would need to be committed.
The next day, Davis contacted Jones’ cousin, who had tried to get Jones help, and asked the cousin to initiate commitment proceedings. (Region IV’s contract with Baptist-DeSoto requires it to try to get a patient’s family member or friend to file commitment paperwork before doing so itself.) The cousin refused because she knew Jones would be jailed until a bed opened up, according to Sandy Jones. (The cousin declined an interview request.)
So Davis filed the commitment paperwork herself, writing that Sydney Jones “should be taken to DeSoto County jail” while awaiting further evaluations, a court hearing and eventual treatment.
On Sydney Jones’ fourth day at Baptist-DeSoto, two sheriff’s deputies arrived. They received discharge papers from a nurse and wheeled Jones out of the hospital, according to her and an incident report. Jones, who said her delusions at the time were “like if Satan made goggles and put them on you,” was terrified that the deputies would drive her to a field, rape her and kill her.
Sandy Jones said she didn’t understand why she had no say in what was happening to her daughter, although that’s typical during the commitment process. “I felt like she was kidnapped from me,” Sandy Jones said. Her daughter spent nine days in jail before being admitted to a crisis unit, where she was treated for about two weeks.
Mississippi Today and ProPublica interviewed five other people who were discharged from Baptist to jail, including two who had been taken to the hospital because they had attempted suicide. One said that when deputies came to his room, he wondered if he had somehow committed a crime after trying to kill himself by overdosing on prescription medication. Another said he felt humiliated to be wheeled through the hospital wearing just a hospital gown. Three of the five said they were handcuffed before being taken away.
Hospital officials noted that all patients are medically stabilized before being released and that some patients are committed by family members. Dr. H. F. Mason, Baptist-DeSoto’s chief medical officer, said in an interview that he didn’t know how often patients who need behavioral health treatment might be discharged to jail, but he has no concerns about the practice. When hospital staff hand patients over to local authorities, Mason said, “we feel that they’re going to take the appropriate care of that patient.”
The jail, however, offers minimal psychiatric treatment, if any. Region IV staff members visit the jail primarily to evaluate people going through the commitment process or to check on people on suicide watch, Region IV Director Jason Ramey said. Jail officials said medical staff try to make sure inmates have access to their prescription drugs, although some people jailed during commitment proceedings have said they didn’t consistently get their medications.
Davis and county officials involved in the commitment process said sending patients to jail as they await treatment is better than allowing them to go home, which they see as the only other option. Jail is “not ideal, but we’ve got to make sure these people are safe so they’re not going to harm themselves or somebody else,” Davis said. “If they’ve had a serious suicide attempt, and they’re just adamant they’re going home, I mean — I can’t ethically let them go home. ... We do try to explore all the options before we send them there.”
Once in jail, many patients wait days or weeks to be evaluated further, to go before a judge and to be taken somewhere for treatment, according to a review of jail dockets. One 37-year-old man picked up at Baptist-DeSoto in 2022 was jailed for nearly two months, which according to jail dockets was one of the longest detentions between 2021 and 2023.
TITLE: DOJ: Mississippi has highest incarceration rate in US
https://www.wjtv.com/news/state/doj-mississippi-has-highest-incarceration-rate-in-us/
EXCERPT: The late 2023 report from the DOJ analyzed data among prisons in 2021 and 2022. The United States imprisons 311 out of every 100,000 residents. Mississippi imprisons more than twice that number at 661 people per 100,000. It is one of four states with more than 1% of its male residents serving sentences of more than one year in state prison.
Between the end of 2021 and 2022, the United States’ overall prison population increased by 2.1%. In Mississippi, it increased by 14.3%.
About 0.86% and 0.9% of the country’s overall male and female population live in Mississippi, respectively. However, the state accounted for 1.44% and 1.45% of the country’s incarcerated male and female population in 2021. In 2022, it increased to 1.59% and 1.82%. Between 2021 and 2022, Mississippi maintained its designation of having the highest imprisonment rate per capita nationwide and also had the largest increase in its prison population overall.
By 2022’s end, the share of Mississippians in the country’s overall prison population was over 83% higher than its share of the country’s overall population. Mississippi’s share of incarcerated women in the U.S. was more than twice the state’s share of women in the country’s overall population.
TITLE: Wrongly convicted man survived 23 years on death row knowing he was innocent
https://www.unilad.com/news/us-news/sherwood-brown-mississippi-death-row-515073-20240517
EXCERPT: Sherwood would spend the next 23 years receiving the same hole-filled tray of food, spending 23 hours a day in his cell with fleeting trips outside in the chicken coop 'pens'.
He faced racial discrimination, 'got jumped by a lot of guys,' saw 'a couple of guys get killed' and even 'got stabbed in the neck' himself, but bar some self defence, he never hit back.
Why? Sherwood knew he was innocent and didn't want to risk anything jeopardizing future freedom.
"We [were] supposed to be fighting for our life on death row [but] we tried to kill each other."
And Sherwood also had another battle to fight - not giving up.
"Year after year, my case kept getting turned down. Sometimes you want to give up. It makes you want to give up," Sherwood says. "You want to kill yourself. But [...] if you kill yourself how can you prove you're innocent? Then people will say, 'Well, he killed himself because he was guilty'."
But day after day, week after week - for over 20 years - Sherwood didn't give up. He survived. Motivated to 'come home' for his family.
In the time he was locked up, Sherwood sadly lost his mom, grandmother, 'big momma' and brother - "People that really cared about me and [who] wanted to see me home."
Nevertheless, the motivation to make it out for the rest of his loved ones kept him going on top of 'the anger' of knowing he was innocent.
"It was killing me at the same time, but it kept me motivated because I knew I hadn't done anything.
"I'm constantly saying in my head: 'You gonna go home, you gonna go home'."
In 2018, Mississippi Supreme Court reversed Sherwood's convictions based on DNA testing and false evidence, and he was transferred to Desoto County jail while his case was re-investigated.
In August 2021, it was decided Sherwood wouldn't be re-tried but set free - his release day 'the best day', but 'a sad day' too.
"I didn't get a chance to show her [his mom] that I made it."
SEE ALSO:
Rankin County residents continue to call for Sheriff Brian Bailey's resignation
https://www.mpbonline.org/blogs/news/rankin-county-residents-continue-to-call-for-sheriff-brian-baileys-resignation/
A Cop's Corruption Allegedly Cost an Innocent Man 2 Years of His Life. Should She Get Qualified Immunity?
https://reason.com/2024/05/22/a-cops-corruption-allegedly-cost-an-innocent-man-2-years-of-his-life-should-she-get-qualified-immunity/