LINCOLN — A person with mental illness goes off prescribed medications, gets unruly, and law enforcement is called. Maybe the person takes a swing at the responding cop, resulting in a trip to jail and maybe a conviction that leads to prison.

Due to the state's lack of resources and facilities to treat patients with mental illness, State Sen. Steve Lathrop said he's watched the above scenario unfold over and over. County jails and Nebraska prisons have instead become de facto mental health institutions; both of which are ill-equipped to treat them, Lathrop said.

“This is the moral issue of the day,” the veteran senator told his colleagues Tuesday.

Lathrop advocated for the increased capacity at the Lincoln Regional Center, especially for those who have been deemed incompetent to stand trial and are awaiting treatment. The average wait time for somebody to move from the county jail to the regional center is 128 days. One person in the Lancaster County Jail has been on the waitlist for 365 days.

“(Families) are begging the jail to send their loved ones to the Regional Center for treatment,” Lancaster County Commissioner Deb Schorr testified at a public hearing last week.

Schorr was one of many witnesses testifying in favor of Legislative Bill 1223 that would require the state to pay $100 a day if someone deemed incompetent had to wait more than 30 days. Sen. Matt Hansen introduced the bill which would also require that state hospitals have at least 200 beds for such individuals.

“It’s not right,” Lathrop said of the lack of beds and waitlists. “Mental health is probably the No. 1 issue for this body.”

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