StarCare Specialty Health System<\/a>, the state-designated Local Authority for mental health and intellectual disabilities in Lubbock.<\/p>\nLonger stays, higher costs<\/p>\n
Rowe said those with mental health disorders often stay in jail longer, which costs taxpayers more.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of getting them processed, determining competency is going to be an issue…you are literally pushing people into years spent in jail,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n
Rowe said one inmate who required mental health and medical services stayed in the Lubbock County Detention Center for more than two years. The inmate was ultimately deemed incompetent to stand trial, and the case was dismissed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had staff go back and calculate and get with the hospital and calculate what kind of costs were associated with his stays. It was just under a million dollars for one guy, and there was ultimately no justice at the end of it,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n
Doctor shortage drives waitlists<\/p>\n
Dr. Sarah Kim, StarCare\u2019s Director of Forensic Mental Health, said one of the challenges is the waitlist for competency evaluations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a severe shortage in forensic psychiatrists and psychologists who do competency evaluations. Our courts contract privately with these doctors to provide them, and they are so backed up because there are just not many of them,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n
Dr. Nancy Trevino, Director of the Texas Tech Mental Health Initiative, said this shortage means more time and more money.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are having providers that are really setting their own price. The evaluation can be anywhere from $700 to $1200 for one evaluation. In statute, there\u2019s a certain time period to submit their report, but there is such a shortage, such a critical shortage, that sometimes there are some challenges with meeting that deadline as well,\u201d Trevino said.<\/p>\n
Local restoration program helps some<\/p>\n
Lubbock County Assistant District Attorney Marlise Boyles has handled the competency docket in Lubbock County for about six years. She said the competency evaluation waitlist poses problems, but Lubbock is fortunate because the Lubbock County Detention Center, with the help of StarCare, offers restoration services for defendants found incompetent but restorable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is wonderful. That enables the defense attorneys to meet with their clients during the restoration process. We aren\u2019t having to pay transport, we are not also having to wait on that state hospital wait list to undergo restoration because it\u2019s not just Lubbock County that is sending them to the state hospital, it\u2019s every other county here in Texas,\u201d Boyles said.<\/p>\n
However, Rowe said not every defendant qualifies for jail-based restoration services.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf an individual has more serious charges, typically something that is aggravated, the state says no, they can\u2019t work through jail-based competency; they have to use the state hospital system,\u201d Rowe said.<\/p>\n
According to StarCare, the state hospital waitlist for admission to a non-Maximum-Security Unit is 121 days. The average waitlist for admission to a Maximum-Security Unit is 140 days.<\/p>\n
Some defendants released before evaluation<\/p>\n
State law limits how long defendants can sit in jail awaiting trial, and long waitlists mean some defendants who suffer from a serious mental illness may walk free before ever seeing a psychiatrist.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the amount of defendants coming into the jail, there are some because of different deadlines and timelines, they are going to time out on their charge before we can even address competency,\u201d Boyles said.<\/p>\n
Boyles said the DA\u2019s office has limited options.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can only work with the laws we are given, so it\u2019s either file a case and proceed with a criminal case, which we can\u2019t do, or we have to reject the case and dismiss the case, and then we are back at square one with certain people coming in frequently,\u201d Boyles said.<\/p>\n
Rusty Gunter, the Chief Defender for the Lubbock Private Defenders Office, said as the population continues to increase in Lubbock, so do the caseloads.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur mental health attorneys are getting them daily. I think our mental health case workers are rolling about 60 to 65 active cases on their caseloads right now,\u201d Gunter said. <\/p>\n
New Mexico pilot program offers alternative<\/p>\n
The New Mexico justice system experienced similar challenges, so in 2024, the state launched a competency diversion pilot program<\/a>. It allows qualifying non-violent offenders the chance to have their charges dropped if they complete mental health treatment.<\/p>\nNew Mexico Supreme Court Justice Briana Zamora said they refer to this as leveraged treatment because the defendant has a choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can go through the criminal justice system and face its consequences \u2014 whatever it may be, and it may be dismissal \u2014 but you still have to go through everything in between, or you can get treatment, and your case will be dismissed,\u201d Zamora said.<\/p>\n
The KCBD Investigates Team spoke with attorneys and other stakeholders to find out if they think a similar program could work in Lubbock County. The team also spoke with Texas Tech about its efforts to grow the pipeline of forensic psychiatrists and psychologists \u2014 and keep them in Lubbock. <\/p>\n
We\u2019ll have more on these angle as we continue to investigate the mental health crisis. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas \u2014 Long waitlists for competency examinations and restoration services mean some defendants with mental health disorders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[292537,292540,97,103233,292538,191007,292541,292539,259,260,3,191008],"class_list":["post-670390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-competency-evaluation-waitlist","tag-competency-restoration-program","tag-health","tag-investigate","tag-jail-mental-health-services","tag-kcbd","tag-kidwell","tag-lubbock-county-detention-center","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-news","tag-shaley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}