By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Buchanan County Sheriff, Bill Puett, says his jail has seen a big increase in the number of mentally ill inmates incarcerated in St. Joseph.
Puett says it’s not a local problem, either. It is a problem faced statewide.
Puett says his jail is not equipped to handle mentally ill inmates. Puett points to one example of an inmate housed in the Buchanan County jail far longer than he should be.
“He has been with us 11 months,” Puett tells KFEQmmunity. “And so, this is not like two weeks. We see 10, 12, 16 months sometimes before we can get them to the Department of Mental Health and that’s just not good.”
Puett recently testified before a Missouri House committee on the problem, telling lawmakers it is a serious issue for his jail, but even more of a burden from rural jails.
The Buchanan County jail houses around 200 inmates at any one time with between 10-and-20% of those inmates ruled by the courts as incompetent to stand trial.
Puett says his jail is ill equipped to handle such inmates.
“I don’t need staff assaulted. I don’t need the jail torn up. I don’t need all these things, because we have individuals that should be in the Department of Mental Health,” Puett says.
The problem, according to Puett, is the Department of Mental Health doesn’t have enough bed space, leading to mentally ill inmates staying in his jail too long.
Puett says his jail isn’t equipped to handle mentally ill inmates.
“Lots of problems with individuals who are not getting treatment, who are not getting their medication,” Puett says. “Individuals might be a lot better off and a lot more easily dealt with if they were able to have treatment and medication. So, being incarcerated without that makes some of them very violent.”
You can follow Brent on X @GBrentKFEQ
