News 10 first reported the issue is not due to a lack of beds in the jail, but how inmates are classified in order to keep them and others safe.

LAFAYETTE, La (KLFY)-- News 10 continues with coverage on the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center's problem with overcrowding. News 10 first reported the issue is not due to a lack of beds in the jail, but how inmates are classified in order to keep them and others safe.

Captain John Mowell with the Lafayette Parish Sheriff's Office said due to the limited number of beds at a mental health facility, inmates who are classified as mentally ill, are housed in parish jails like LPCC, which contributes the jail being overcrowded.

"There's only one facility, a mental institution in the state of Louisiana, that is actually accepting pretrial detainees with mental illness issues."

Captain Mowell said the only mental health facility accepting inmates in the state does not have enough beds.

"While it's a 500-bed facility, it only has 100 beds available for pretrial detainees," Mowell said.

And those 100 beds are for all the parishes in the state.

"If you think of the entire state of Louisiana and all the parishes having 100 beds for is not enough," Mowell said.

Mowell said in order for an inmate to be classified as mentally ill, there is a standard that has to be met.

"We have we have 89 individuals that have been classified as having a mental illness, and they're actually taking prescription medication for that," Mowell said. "There's a lot of other individuals who don't qualify under this particular category as being mentally ill. Well, we know that they are they just don't meet the standard."

Mowell said because of the lack of resources and housing for the inmates classified with mental health issues, there is nowhere to place them other than the parish jails.

"The parish jails have become the mental institutions for the state," he said. "Throughout the state."

LPCC said they are working to find other solutions to help decrease the overcrowding issue.

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