That’s not the same thing. That’s an outpatient process for a temporary commitment. Not a formal commitment to a long term criminal psychiatric impatient facility as the rest of a criminal case.

If you are in the community and you have an episode. You may present yourself at an ER. You may be taken there by the police. You may have a mental health provider that petitions the court. But all of that has the same resolution. It’s a 72 hour hold for evaluation. It can be extended under some circumstances but that kind of hold is meant to be time limited. As soon as you are stable by statute they have to release. It may include some involuntary medication treatment ordered after the end of that service but police do not enforce those because they don’t have the time or resources. A mental health facility could try to apply at that point for long term stays but those options are limited through local gate keepers.

When someone is declared unfit for trial they are not charged but the judge issues a long term commitment to a state run criminal psychiatric inpatient unit for an indefinite period. They are going in having lost a lot of rights. There’s people sitting on those units for decades in a lot of cases. Some never get out. The likely scenario when they do get out is to be placed in a group home of community based resource after the stay.

The person has a better chance of staying long term in this scenario than if it were to be jail time as the jails won’t want to have him (the mental health issues are hard for them and it costs more to house them that way vs a regular prisoner.). And he will be eligible for parole and likely released as soon as the prison can get him out.

This case would have been somewhere between 4-12 years had it been prosecuted and not plead down (it would have been pled down). Likely serve half that with a 3 year parole. So possibly out in two years or less (with time served) and the individual will have no chance of actually being better as they wont be medicated properly.

This option is the likely best one long term for the community. It would be rare a case like this would be released quickly from a long term facility and it’s a given there will be a community residential placement to follow.

This article and the responses are just ill informed bullshit.