11/12/2025
Recent reporting from the Illinois Answers Project shows failures in Illinois’ fitness restoration system continue to cause real harm to people with serious mental health needs.
People found unfit to stand trial are still waiting far beyond the 60-day placement deadline for mental health care. Many are being held in county jails that are not designed or equipped to provide treatment, and in one case, a young woman with an intellectual disability—who never should have been in the fitness restoration system in the first place—died after waiting 67 days in jail for a hospital bed.
This is unacceptable. Equip for Equality calls for the state to stop prioritizing jail-based efforts and do more to make community based mental health treatment and supports a reality. We need timely access to appropriate mental health and restoration services, and a community system that prioritizes treatment and care over criminalization and confinement.
Read more at illinoisanswers.org.
- Too mentally ill for trial, she spent months in an Illinois jail as the state looked for a hospital bed. She died waiting. )https://illinoisanswers.org/2025/11/11/too-mentally-ill-for-trial-she-spent-months-in-an-illinois-jail-as-the-state-looked-for-a-hospital-bed-she-died-waiting/)
- Illinois Is Turning to Local Jails to Treat Mentally Ill Defendants. (https://illinoisanswers.org/2025/11/11/illinois-is-turning-to-local-jails-to-treat-mentally-ill-defendants-some-early-results-offer-hope-and-warnings/)
- How Illinois is now prioritizing outpatient fitness restoration (https://illinoisanswers.org/2025/11/11/dhs-explainer/)
