People who have not been charged with a crime now will not be given a bed at the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Fort Logan in Denver for the foreseeable future.
KUSA-TV reports the Colorado Department of Human Services announced that patients discharged from the hospital are being replaced with someone in the criminal justice system as of Christmas Eve.
The Disability Law Colorado Director of Legal Services Alison Butler says Colorado is focused on a "short-minded solution" by giving more beds for people in the criminal justice system. She says "essentially, in order to get mental inpatient mental health services you have to commit a crime."
The Colorado Department of Human Services says "it did not have an option but to freeze civil admissions" because of its "requirement to meet the constitutional rights of defendants in criminal cases."
Information from: KUSA-TV. Copyright 2018 Associated Press. All rights reserved.