She spent six months in an Oklahoma jail waiting for mental health treatment
Joy Sharp awoke shortly after 1:30 a.m. one night in September 2020 as her 24-year-old daughter broke into her house, screaming angry accusations.
Grace Franklin heard voices and had delusional thoughts. She had spent most of the past few weeks in a near catatonic state, staring at the walls of Sharp’s house in rural Stephens County or sitting in the bathtub. Franklin has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, but like many people with the disease, she refused treatment because she didn’t believe she was sick.
Sharp called 911 as Franklin tried to force her way into her mother’s locked bedroom. She hoped law enforcement would finally help Franklin get the mental health services she needed.
Franklin, who has no prior criminal record, would instead spend most of the next six months locked inside the Stephens County jail with her case in legal limbo, unable to understand the charge against her or assist an attorney with her defense. She joined a long waiting list of mentally ill people held in jails across Oklahoma found incompetent to stand trial. Franklin was forced to wait for a bed to open up at the Oklahoma Forensic Center in Vinita, a state hospital where mentally ill people deemed too sick to participate in legal proceedings receive court-ordered treatment — but only until they are well enough to face criminal prosecution or the state can’t legally hold them any longer.
Read more: https://www.readfrontier.org/stories/she-spent-six-months-in-an-oklahoma-jail-waiting-for-mental-health-treatment/
(The Frontier)
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