Until quite recently, it took a minimum of 30 days, and frequently much longer, for such a report to be produced. Meanwhile, the defendant languished in jail. Second, once the court receives a report finding a defendant mentally incompetent to stand trial, it can dismiss the case and order that the defendant be committed to a state hospital for further evaluation and treatment. However, the defendant doesn't leave court to go to the hospital. Instead, he is returned to jail until a state hospital agrees to take him.
Patients can wait in jail for transfer for as long as four months.
For two years, people in the New York City criminal justice system have been trying to reduce these unconscionably long periods of incarceration for the mentally ill who end up in this situation. The court psychiatric clinics which prepare the competency evaluation reports have been successful at reducing the time it takes to generate a report, and it now averages 12 days. While this is much better than 30 days, this actually is a step back, because a few months ago the turn-around time was 7 days. We understand that Correctional Health Services has attributed the longer times to cuts in the administrative staff for this project. The second initiative has been to speed up the time for transfer of the mentally ill to state psychiatric hospitals once their cases have been dismissed.