Officials say a new law to decrease the number of people being jailed solely because they need mental health treatment has led to fewer people with serious mental illness detained in jails – but the data is contradictory and incomplete. 

A state agency, counties and community mental health centers – all of which have roles in carrying out the new law – reported vastly different numbers of people who spent time in jail during the civil commitment process during the first three months the law was effective. 

Community mental health centers reported that 43 people were jailed from July to September 2024, less than half the number the Department of Mental Health reported: 102 people. And the department’s figure is likely an underrepresentation, because it only documents people who were later admitted to a state hospital – meaning the figure does not include people who were jailed before they were released or received treatment elsewhere. 

Department of Mental Health spokesperson Adam Moore told Mississippi Today he couldn’t explain the discrepancy.

Counties’ reporting of commitment data has been patchy since lawmakers mandated chancery courts to report psychiatric commitment data to the state in 2023. Only 43 of Mississippi’s 82 chancery court clerks complied and submitted the most recent report. Those counties reported a total of 25 people being held in jail during the same period while in the civil commitment process. 

Six counties – Alcorn, Choctaw, Holmes, Issaquena, Kemper and Sharkey – have never reported the data to the state. Only Choctaw County Chancery Clerk Steve Montgomery responded to Mississippi Today’s inquiries as to why, saying he was not aware the court had not reported the data. 

“It’s been inconsistent. It’s been sometimes just absent in different parts of the state,” said Rep. Sam Creekmore IV, a Republican from New Albany who chairs the Public Health and Human Services Committee. “And so it’s really hard for us to evaluate how well or how bad we’re doing when the numbers aren’t consistent.” 

Creekmore sponsored changes to Mississippi’s civil commitment law in 2024 and reporting requirements in 2023. He said he plans to propose legislation this year that would ensure more counties submit mandatory data. 

“It really makes it impossible to legislate changes to (the new civil commitment laws) when our data is not complete,” he said. 

After changes to the civil commitment law passed last year, Creekmore said the Department of Mental Health would “police” counties to ensure compliance. But the agency told Mississippi Today and ProPublica it would educate county officials and mental health workers on the new law, but wouldn’t enforce it.

The Department of Mental Health sends quarterly reminders to clerks about reporting deadlines, has provided access to training videos, written instructions and established a help desk for technical questions, said Moore, the agency’s spokesperson.

The state Legislature approved changes to the state’s civil commitment law in May after Mississippi Today and ProPublica reporting revealed that hundreds of people with no criminal charges were held in Mississippi jails each year as they awaited involuntary mental health evaluation and treatment. They frequently received no mental health care in jail and were treated like criminal defendants.

The new law went into effect in July 2024. Now, local community mental health center staffers screen people who are reported to be a potential danger to themself or others before they are taken into state custody and must note why a less restrictive treatment is not an option. A person cannot be held in jail unless all other options for care have been exhausted, they are “actively violent” and never for more than 48 hours. 

The new law also requires that people in crisis see mental health professionals first. The screeners can recommend commitment or suggest voluntary treatment options that are more suitable, avoiding the civil commitment process entirely. 

Over 500 people were diverted to a less restrictive treatment than civil commitment, and 1,330 screenings for commitment by mental health professionals were conducted statewide during the first three months after the new law took effect, according to community mental health center reports. 

Wait times in jail for people who have been ordered to be admitted to a state hospital by a judge decreased by a day and a half in a year, said Moore, but the agency does not know how long people wait in jail before a judge orders commitment. 

“I think this was the most sweeping change they’ve made since I’ve been in office,” said Butch Scipper, who has served as the chancery clerk of Quitman County since 1992, of the new law. 

He, like many other chancery court judges, sheriffs and mental health professionals, have lauded the policy for weaning Mississippi off its longstanding dependence on jails to house people with severe mental illness awaiting treatment at the state hospital.

Most states do not regularly hold people in jail without charges during the psychiatric civil commitment process. At least 12 states and the District of Columbia prohibit the practice entirely. And only one Mississippi jail was certified by the state to house people awaiting court-ordered psychiatric treatment in 2023. 

Sheriffs, who have long decried the burden of housing people with mental health concerns in jails as inappropriate and unsafe, have been largely supportive of changes to the law. 

“It’s fantastic for the sheriffs, because the sheriffs don’t want people that are sick in the jail,” said Will Allen, the attorney for the Mississippi Sheriffs Association. “They certainly don’t want people who have not committed a crime in the jail.”

Challenges with implementation

Implementing the law has proved challenging for areas of the state with limited resources, particularly those without nearby crisis stabilization units, which provide short-term treatment to people in psychiatric crises.

And even in well-resourced areas, limited crisis beds can force counties to transport patients or house them in a nearby private treatment facility at their own expense. 

Community mental health centers, which run the state’s crisis stabilization units, reported this happening 114 times due to limited bed or staffing capacity between July and September 2024. 

There are 14 state-funded crisis stabilization units with 204 beds – up from 180 last year – across the state. 

The restrictions on housing people in jail have proved to be a “nightmare” for Calhoun County, which is more than 30 miles away from the nearest crisis stabilization unit, said Chancery Clerk Kathy Poyner. 

“We don’t have anywhere else to put them,” she said. “We can’t afford a psychiatric cell. Rural counties just can’t meet the financial obligations.” 

Law enforcement officers are legally responsible for transporting patients. But some counties argue this can be costly and time consuming for their officers. 

The state’s crisis stabilization unit beds were never all full during fiscal year 2024, said Adam Moore, spokesperson for the Department of Mental Health. “There is always an open CSU bed somewhere in the state if a sheriff is willing to transport a person,” he said. 

Creekmore said he also hopes to introduce a bill for a pilot transportation program that would offset the costs of transporting patients to mental health treatment. The program would be modeled after a similar one in Tennessee.

The Department of Mental Health has provided additional funding to community health centers for mental health screening, crisis stabilization units, mobile crisis response teams and court liaisons, but does not fund transportation by law enforcement officers.

Being responsible for transportation rather than jailing people is a good deal for sheriffs, said Allen, because the costs of transportation pale in comparison to the liability risks of holding someone experiencing an acute mental health crisis in jail. 

“That was sort of the tradeoff,” he said. “They’re not going to be in jail, but (law enforcement is) going to have to take them places.”

Some counties have explored other solutions, like establishing crisis stabilization units closer to home. 

DeSoto County will open a 16-bed stabilization unit in Hernando this year, said County Supervisor Lee Caldwell. Funding the new facility quickly in the wake of the new law was challenging but necessary because the county is a significant distance from the nearest crisis centers, she said. 

Some advocates say the law’s stipulations should be more stringently supervised by the state. 

The law includes no provisions to ensure that counties detain only people who meet the law’s stringent requirements – there are no other options and the person is “actively violent” – and do not hold people longer than 48 hours. 

Greta Martin, the litigation director for Disability Rights Mississippi, said the lack of oversight in the law is concerning. 

“If you are enacting legislation with a 48-hour cap on people being held in county jail and you do not provide any oversight ensuring that county jails are adhering to that, what’s the point of the legislation?” she said. 

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

House and Senate leaders have remained at odds on efforts to expand Medicaid coverage to the working poor in Mississippi, but they agree on one thing as the 2025 legislative session starts: They should wait to draft and debate policy until the Trump administration and a new head of federal Medicaid take office.

This could easily push any legislative action on expansion into next year, postpone it until next session, depending on how long the changing of the guard in Washington takes. Installment of a new head of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid could easily take until late spring or summer.

“We’re going to pump the brakes and figure out where a Trump administration is on these issues,” Republican House Speaker Jason White said. “Anybody that doesn’t want to do that, I think you’re not being honest with where the landscape is.”

Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who presides over the Senate, agreed waiting to hear of any federal policy changes or allowances is prudent before trying to add Mississippi to the ranks of 41 other states that are accepting billions in federal dollars to provide health coverage through expanded Medicaid.

Trump, who will take office later this month, has selected TV personality and celebrity physician Dr. Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz’s appointment will require U.S. Senate confirmation.

This would likely make tax cuts or elimination the early, main debate among lawmakers. White and Hosemann both outlined their tax cut plans as the new session starts. White is continuing his push for eliminating the state income tax, as is Gov. Tate Reeves. Hosemann is continuing his call for a more cautious approach, cutting income taxes more over the next few years. Both said they also want to cut the state’s highest in the nation sales tax on groceries, nonprepared food.

Other likely major issues for lawmakers include changes to the state’s medical certificate of need regulations for hospital or clinic expansion, regulation of pharmacy benefit management, “school choice” — using public funds for private schools and allowing public school students to more easily change districts to escape poorly performing schools — and changes to the state’s Public Employee Retirement System.

Quote of the Week

“I don’t anticipate us not being here very many Fridays, but we will adjourn tomorrow for the week and go home and mirror our Senate counterparts. I hope it’s one of the only things we mirror them on this session.”

— House Speaker Jason White, on ending the legislative week a day early because of impending snow and ice storms for North Mississippi, and a dig at the policy clashes between the House and Senate

In Brief

Will Mississippi scrap white supremacists statues in Washington?

As other Southern states replace their statues of white supremacists in the U.S. Capitol, more Mississippi lawmakers appear ready to install more inclusive figures of the Magnolia State in Washington.

Democratic Sen. David Blount of Jackson filed a bill that creates a commission to recommend who state officials should replace the statues of J.Z. George and Jefferson Davis with in the U.S. Capitol’s Statuary Hall collection. The lieutenant governor’s office referred the bill to the Senate Rules Committee, which is led by Republican Sen. Dean Kirby of Pearl.

Kirby in the past has not advanced similar legislation out of his committee, but House Rules Committee Chairman Fred Shanks, a Republican from Brandon, previously told Mississippi Today he is open to moving such legislation forward in the 122-member House. — Taylor Vance

Reeves does some online lobbying for tax elimination

Gov. Tate Reeves posted on X as the Mississippi Legislature gaveled in this week that eliminating the state income tax is his top legislative priority, and he challenged fellow Republican statewide elected and legislative leaders to let voters know where they stand.

“Legislative Session begins today — #1 Goal for this Republican: ELIMINATE the Income Tax in Mississippi!!” Reeves posted. Under his tagging of others he said, “Are y’all with me?? @MSGOP voters deserve to know.”

Republican House Speaker Jason White this week also declared phasing out the income tax as his top priority. Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who oversees the Senate, has proposed a more cautious approach: continuing to cut the state’s already low income taxes over the next few years, and cutting the state’s highest-in-the-nation sales tax on groceries. — Geoff Pender

Judges sworn in for state’s highest courts

New and returning state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals judges took their oaths of office on Monday.

Newly elected high court justices Jenifer B. Branning of Philadelphia and Justice David P. Sullivan of Biloxi took their oaths to begin their judicial service, as did newly elected appeals Judge Amy Lassitter St. Pe’ of Pascagoula.

The Mississippi Constitution requires each justice and judge to swear or affirm “that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as (name of office) according to the best of my ability and understanding, agreeably to the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution and laws of the State of Mississippi. So help me God.” — Mississippi Today politics team

By the Numbers

558

The number of general bills that had been posted to the state’s legislative website after the end of the first week of the new session Of these, 547 were House bills, 11 from the Senate. Typically, around 3,000 bills will be filed during a legislative session, but only hundreds will eventually be passed into law. Jan. 20 is the deadline for introduction of general bills and constitutional amendments.

Full Legislative Coverage

Here are the issues the Legislature will address during the 2025 session

Felony suffrage, restoration of a ballot initiative, tax cuts, Medicaid expansion — Mississippi lawmakers are expected to again deal with several longstanding issues. Read the story.

Speaker White, Lt. Gov. Hosemann talk 2025 priorities

Mississippi’s top two legislative leaders outlined their priorities for the legislative session to state media last week before the state’s 174 lawmakers gaveled in in Jackson. Read the story.

Mississippi will have at least three special legislative elections this year 

Some Mississippians around the state will have the chance to participate in at least three special elections to fill vacancies in the state Legislature — and there could be more in the future. Read the story.

Billionaire Tommy Duff forms Republican PAC as he weighs gubernatorial run

Billionaire Tommy Duff, as he considers a run for Mississippi governor in 2027, has formed a political action committee to help elect Republicans to city and legislative offices this year, likely to increase his influence as a political powerbroker. Read the story.

Photos: Lawmakers gavel in for 2025 Mississippi legislative session

Day one of the 2025 legislative session. See the photos.

Gov. Tate Reeves zones in again on taxes but remains silent on critical retirement system problems

Analysis: Gov. Tate Reeves, still shouting his desire to eliminate the income tax, is dead silent on another critical financial issue facing the state. Read Bobby Harrison’s analysis.

Podcast: ‘Deja vu all over again’: Senate President Protem Dean Kirby outlines 2025 issues

Sen. Dean Kirby, second ranking leader of the state Senate, says many of the issues Mississippi lawmakers will be tackling this year are recurring ones: tax cuts, education funding, Medicaid expansion, and issues with the Public Employees Retirement System. He’s also helping lead court mandated redistricting that will likely result in do-over elections later this year for numerous lawmakers. Listen to the podcast.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Jan. 13, 1990 

Douglas Wilder, who became the first Black American elected governor since Reconstruction, took office in Richmond, Virginia. 

Named after both abolitionist Frederick Douglass and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar, he worked his way through Virginia Union University before being drafted into the Korean War. During the Battle of Pork Chop, he and two fellow soldiers were cut off from their unit. When they ran into 19 Chinese soldiers, they bluffed them into surrendering. Wilder was awarded a Bronze Star Medal for his bravery. 

Back in the U.S., he became a lawyer, and in 1969 won a seat in the Virginia State Senate, becoming the first African American elected to the body since Reconstruction. In 1985, he was elected lieutenant governor, and four years later won as governor. The winning margin? Less than one-half percent.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.