Mentally ill people are stuck in jail because they can't get treatment. Here's what's to know

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Fernando Clark spent the last 10 months of his life in a jail cell, waiting for psychiatric treatment a court ordered he undergo after he’d been arrested for stealing cigarettes and some fruit from a gas station.

He died while waiting for the treatment that never arrived, found unresponsive in his jail cell.

Clark was just one of hundreds of people across Alabama awaiting a spot in the state’s increasingly limited facilities, despite a consent decree requiring the state to address delays in providing care for people who are charged with crimes but deemed too mentally ill to stand trial.

But seven years since the federal agreement, the problem has only worsened. The waitlis

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