OXFORD – The Mississippi Department of Mental Health said significantly fewer people they oversee who needed mental health services in the state ended up in county jails over the last year, findings it attributed to a 2024 bill lawmakers passed to reduce how often people are placed in that position.

Sharing statistics from the department’s fiscal year 2025 annual report at the agency’s board meeting Thursday, Executive Director Wendy Bailey said there was a 31% decrease in state hospital admissions from jails since the House Bill 1640 became law in July 2024. 

Before the new legislation, people going through the civil commitment process could be jailed if county officials determined they did not have another place to hold them. 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. 

Among people jailed while awaiting mental health treatment at a state hospital, the department found that their wait behind bars decreased from about two days before the law went into effect to about one day after. Bailey attributed these changes to a part of the law that requires a provider to screen someone being committed for severe mental illness before they are sent to jail. 

In 2023, Mississippi Today and ProPublica found that the state routinely jailed people in need of severe mental health treatment who were never charged with a crime, which often endangered their lives. It was the only state in the country that regularly did that, according to a survey conducted by the newsrooms. 

The mental health department’s statistics are only one measure of how many people end up in jails with mental health needs and no criminal charges. Chancery clerks and community mental health centers are also supposed to keep track of the number of people in this position. Unlike the state agency, their statistics include those who are released to places other than the state hospitals. 

In January, Mississippi Today found that these three groups of recordkeepers had inconsistent numbers, making it difficult to say whether the 2024 law was doing what lawmakers said it would. 

After the board meeting, Adam Moore, spokesperson for the Department of Mental Health, said that although the agency’s annual report findings did not account for everyone, they still indicated that the new law was having a positive effect.

“We think it’s a correlation, and we think it’s a positive correlation,” he said.

House Public Health and Human Services Chairman Sam Creekmore, a Republican from New Albany, was the lead sponsor of the 2024 bill, and he said the Mississippi Today and ProPublica’s Investigation was a big reason he co-authored it. 

After the board meeting, Creekmore said he was proud of the Legislature’s efforts to reform the civil commitment process. But that law alone won’t ensure that the most mentally vulnerable Mississippians will avoid danger while trying to get help. 

He said that goal would take more work from the Legislature next year.

“It’s not perfect by any means.”

Community Health Reporter Gwen Dilworth contributed to this story.