The majority of inpatient psychiatric beds should not be appropriated by the forensic system.

In 2006, the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) published a report entitled “The Crisis in Acute Psychiatric Care.” The report noted reduced inpatient bed capacity in state, private, and general hospital psychiatric units. Citing estimates from the National Association of Psychiatric Health Systems, NASMHPD reported a long-term shift in the locus of hospitalization from state hospitals to community hospitals and to nonhospital residential units. NASMHPD also noted the collateral effects of reduced hospital level psychiatric beds on hospital emergency departments and on the increased number of mentally ill individuals in the nation’s jails and prisons. The May 2007 meeting of the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates passed Resolution 714, which stated: