Missouri Department of Mental Health

Sports betting launches in Missouri on Dec. 1. Customers will be able to start signing up with different sportsbooks beginning Nov. 17.

Missouri’s competency-to-stand-trial system has become so overloaded that even people accused of low-level crimes now wait years for effective treatment. Most defendants bide their time in county jails that sheriffs acknowledge aren’t equipped to meet mental health needs.

Timothy Beckmann was arrested in late September but had not been convicted of any crimes yet. He was found dead Monday at the Jackson County Detention Center, months after being ordered into the custody of the Department of Mental Health.

The number of people waiting in jail to be transferred to state mental health facilities reached an all-time high in February. People are sometimes being incarcerated for longer than if they’d actually received the maximum sentence for the crime they were charged with.

From 2017 through 2023, roughly 2,680 people with developmental disabilities died under the care of the state of Missouri — on average, one person every day.

There are 418 Missourians across the state on a waiting list for a mental health bed, up from around 300 at this time last year. People are spending an average of 14 months in jail before receiving their court-ordered treatment.

Victims of the opioid crisis, health advocates, and policy experts have called on state and local governments to clearly report how they’re using the funds they are receiving from settlements with opioid companies. So where are Missouri's dollars going?

The Department of Mental Health said the number of people waiting in jail to be transferred to psychiatric hospitals will continue to rise because inpatient beds are at capacity. A new hospital is planned in Kansas City, but it could be years before construction is complete.

Children in the foster care system with severe behavioral health issues and trauma are often treated in group homes that specialize in individualized care. In at least two states, there is space at these centers for boys — but not for girls.

After a year-and-a-half investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice determined that Missourians suffering with mental illness are “subjected to unnecessary stays in nursing facilities, generally because of a series of systemic failures by the state.”

Missouri has 285 people waiting in jails to be transferred to state-run psychiatric hospitals, potentially for months, without having been found guilty of a crime. And that number has been going up over the last few months, despite new mitigation efforts.

The people imprisoned were supposed to receive rehabilitative mental health services that allow them to stand trial, but they have been found to languish in Missouri jails — often for months — without having been found guilty of any crime.