Mississippi mental health director outlines forensic reforms, new secure beds and a $13,000 tracking website

Dr. Tom Recor, medical director for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, told the Senate Public Health and Welfare panel that the department has expanded forensic evaluation capacity, is moving forward with a renovated maximum-security building at Mississippi State Hospital and has launched a public tracking website that cost about $13,000.

Why it matters: Recor said the changes aim to shorten long waits for competency evaluations, address a legal bottleneck that left some defendants incarcerated for years, and free limited inpatient beds for people who need civil psychiatric commitment rather than long jail stays.

Recor told senators that competency evaluations are governed by a 1960 United States Supreme Court decision and that the state must recruit licensed clinicians to determine whether defendants are able to assist in their defense. He said Mississippi once saw evaluation waits measured in hundreds or even a thousand days but that in 2019–20 the Whitfield forensic service reduced wait times so no one waited more than 30 days for an initial evaluation.

To expand capacity, Recor said the department advertised full-time evaluator positions at state hospitals and initially received no applicants; later, after creating a certification…