Incompetent inmates awaiting trial often require expensive hospitalization and are detained for lengthy periods. Our jurisdiction has developed an efficient and effective method for treating incompetent inmates who do not require hospitalization. If you’re interested in more information, I can share what we’ve been doing.

Yes, please share.

Lindy, I would love to hear your ideas.

I would like very much to learn how you are ensuring the safety for both the public and this population, but will you please define “incompetent inmates” so I make sure we are on the same page?

Yes, I am definitely interested!

I would be very interested to hear what you are doing.

Yes, please share your strategies.

Incompetent inmates!? What actually does that mean!?

Hi Lindy,
Thank you for offering to share Pima County’s strategies. Would love to learn more.
On the same vein, we are having trouble figuring safe and effective strategies when there are incompetency issues being raised for juveniles. Particuarly regarding appropriate placement, outside of detention facilities, when home /family is not recommended as safe by the court. Anyone else have ideas, strategies to share other than opening a new residential facility?

Tom Grisso of the National Youth Screening & Assessment Project (NYSAP) is the best resource for information on competency for juveniles. Tom may be contacted through the NYSAP website at http://www.nysap.us.
Two recent articles he co-authored on this topic are the following:

“Prospects for Remediating Juveniles’ Adjudicative Incompetence” by Jodi L. Viljoen and Thomas Grisso in Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, Vol 13(2), May 2007, 87-114.
(This article provides a good background and overview of competency issues in general).

and

“The Competence-Related Abilities of Adolescent Defendants in Criminal Court” in Law and Human Behavior, Vol 30(1), February 2006, 75-92.
(This article provides information on adjudicative competence of juveniles in criminal court; and details the results of a comparison study of youth who might have impaired competence-related abilities and developmental characteristics compared to adults).

Should you have any difficulty finding copies of these articles, please feel free to contact my colleague at the Justice Center, Cynthea Kimmelman-DeVries @ ckimmelman-devries@csg.org. Additionally, the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice created an annotated bibliography on competency. Please contact Cynthea to receive a copy of this bibliography.