A Man Who Wants to Be Hospitalized Spent Most of a Year in Jail

Late last year, Oregon State Hospital published encouraging data showing it was once again back in compliance with a 2002 court order designed to limit the amount of time people with mental illness spend warehoused in jails. It showed the average time criminal defendants spent behind bars waiting for a hospital bed had fallen under seven days.

But that data doesn’t represent all of the time people with mental illness spend languishing in jail.

Consider the experience of Joshua McCurry, a man diagnosed with schizophrenia who was profiled by WW nearly a year ago after a county official used his story to illustrate the consequences of the hospital’s new early release policy, which had shifted the burden of caring for McCurry from the state to the overwhelmed county health department.

By the math of the court order, McCurry made it to the hospital on Sept. 28 on schedule. He spent only six days waiting to be transported back to Oregon State Hospital after a judge ruled he was, once again, too mentally ill to defend himself in court.

But those six days don’t account for the nearly nine months McCurry had already spent in jail as the courts weighed his fate. His story illustrates why there’s no easy fix to the state’s broken mental health system.

McCurry, like many people suffering from delusions, often refuses to take the psychiatric medication that could help him live peacefully. He needs—and wants—to be hospitalized, but there just aren’t any beds available to him. Beds at the state psychiatric hospital are scarce, other specialized treatment facilities are in short supply, and local hospitals are so overwhelmed by people with severe mental illness that they quickly churn them back to the streets.

The last time WW wrote about McCurry, he’d just been released from Oregon State Hospital (“World of Hurt,” March 8, 2023). Up against the new early release guidelines and running out of time, a psychologist determined he had a personality disorder, not psychosis. The hospital kicked him out.

At the time WW last wrote about him, McCurry was sitting in a Multnomah County jail waiting for his day in court. He’d end up waiting nine months, until a judge once again found him too mentally ill to be in the criminal justice system, starting the official clock on McCurry’s wait for a bed. He’d already spent a total of 259 days in jail since his last stay at the state hospital.

Part of the problem is that the county’s criminal justice system moves slowly, to the detriment of people with mental illness caught up in it. But this is exacerbated by the fact that the county’s mental health system is in shambles.

At one point, after McCurry spent weeks waiting for a community restoration consultation, his three public defenders drafted a brief to have the county held in contempt of court. (The county complied the next day.)

Meanwhile, McCurry wasn’t the only one suffering. McCurry has learned that the only way he can be hospitalized is through violence. As WW reported last year, much of that violence happened on the streets of Portland.

Locked in jail, however, he turned on his captors. Over the six months he spent in the maximum-security Multnomah County Detention Center downtown, he assaulted staff three times, picking up a new felony charge in the process.

A Timeline of Joshua McCurry’s Journey Back to Oregon State Hospital

Day 1: On Jan. 4, 2023, the state hospital kicks Joshua McCurry out. He’s sent back to Multnomah County’s downtown jail.

Day 61: Judge Nan Waller concludes he’s “fit to proceed.” His criminal case moves forward.

Day 77: At his next appearance in court, McCurry head-butts a corrections deputy. He’s charged with five additional misdemeanors.

Day 207: He assaults another deputy and is later indicted on a felony.

Day 209: The court begins the process of evaluating whether McCurry is competent to stand trial on the head-butting charges.

Day 212: McCurry grabs the arm of a nurse who’s passing him medication through a slot in the door of his cell on the eighth floor of MCDC. The nurse is hospitalized. McCurry picks up another misdemeanor charge.

Day 216: Judge Waller sends McCurry to Providence Medical Center for treatment with orders for him not to be released to the street. He’s back in jail three days later.

Day 261: McCurry’s public defenders file a motion demanding the Multnomah County Behavioral Health Division be held in contempt of court for not promptly conducting a “community restoration consultation” required to determine where McCurry will be sent for treatment.

Day 262: Judge Waller signs an order of commitment.

Day 268: On Sept. 28, 2023, McCurry is sent back to Oregon State Hospital, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office says.