James Tatsch was not charged with any crime. But when he was found unresponsive in an isolation cell at the Alcorn County Jail on Jan. 17, he had been locked up for 12 days. He died at the local hospital.

Tatsch was waiting for mental health treatment through Mississippi’s involuntary commitment process. Every year, hundreds of people going through the process are detained in county jails for days or weeks at a time while they wait for evaluations, hearings and treatment. They are generally treated like criminal defendants and receive little or no mental health care while jailed.

Mississippi Today and ProPublica previously reported that since 2006, at least 14 people have died after being jailed during this process. Tatsch, who was 48 years old, is at least the 15th. No one in the state keeps track of how often people die while jailed for this reason. The news organizations identified the deaths through lawsuits, news clips and Mississippi Bureau of Investigation reports. MBI investigates in-custody deaths only at the request of the local sheriff or district attorney.

  • @maness300
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    -101 year ago

    It’s justifiable for pedophiles.

    • ArxCyberwolf
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      81 year ago

      No. They need to serve their time, and wrongful convictions do happen. State-sponsored murder of prisoners is not okay.

      • @maness300
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        -181 year ago

        So now we defend pedophiles on lemmy?

        What a place to be.

        • ArxCyberwolf
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          81 year ago

          So now we make strawmen and put words into other people’s mouths to win imaginary arguments on Lemmy? What a place to be indeed.

          • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️ 🏆
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            1 year ago

            Honestly, that kinda thing is more common on Lemmy than it was on Reddit in my experience. Don’t run into many bad actors here, but when you do it’s someone who either purposely ignores what was said, or have absolutely no reading comprehension skills.

          • @maness300
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            -61 year ago

            That’s literally what he did.

            • prole
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              31 year ago

              No it’s definitely not. Work on your reading comprehension and try again.

              • @maness300
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                -51 year ago

                Lol, now you’re just going through all my comments and replying to me?

                Sad fellow.

                • prole
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                  11 year ago

                  Lol what? Why would you think I did that?