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He knows it. His parents know it. St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson knows it.

“It’s really frustrating,� Riewski, 26, told me in a phone call from jail last week. “There are people here a lot worse off than me. They need treatment.�

Riewski is part of a growing class of detainees in jails in Illinois and Missouri: people suffering from mental illness who have been found unfit to stand trial but can’t be transferred to a psychiatric hospital for evaluation and treatment because there are no beds available.

There are seven such people in the St. Clair County Jail. Each of them, like Riewski, has a judge’s order saying they are unfit for trial and ordering them to a facility run by the Illinois Department of Human Services. Riewski received his order in May. He’s supposed to go to the Alton Mental Health Center. Instead, he’s in jail and often in solitary confinement, when his mental issues surface.

“We’re not a mental health facility,� says Maj. Tammy Grimes, the jail superintendent in St. Clair County. “We can’t provide them the health care that the court is ordering them to receive.�

People like Riewski are in legal limbo. Their criminal cases can’t progress through the system until they get treatment. They can’t get treatment until there are beds available.

The situation has become so acute in Illinois that earlier this year, several county sheriff’s . It started with a lawsuit by Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell on behalf of a detainee there. A judge ordered the state to find a bed in a mental hospital for that man. Since then, five other counties, including Madison County, have joined the lawsuit against the state.

The crisis causes incredible damage to mentally ill men and women who are stuck in county jails, sometimes for months, says Amanda Antholt, managing attorney for , a nonprofit that advocates for people with disabilities.

“These are people who are in desperate need of treatment,� Antholt says. “Many of them end up being held in isolation, where they end up getting much worse because the county jail is not equipped to provide for their care.�

Federal and state prisons are facing the same crisis. In Missouri’s system, for example, about 200 inmates are waiting for evaluation at Department of Mental Health hospitals.

For Cindy and Martin Riewski, waiting to learn when their son might get treatment is the hardest part. He was diagnosed with ADHD and anxiety in grade school, and the problems got worse as he got older, exacerbated by drug use as an adult. He was arrested once while sitting in the middle of Highway 13. In his most recent arrest, he was in a neighbor’s yard in Belleville digging through the muck and mud. He told deputies he was looking for a portal to another universe.

The opportunities and funding for local mental health treatment are few and far between. When Matthew was arrested for disorderly conduct in April, his mother was actually hoping for what happened — a judge’s order to go to a hospital for treatment.

“I was overjoyed with the ruling,� Cindy Riewski says. “Now, three months later, I’m worried if he’s ever going to get the treatment he needs.�

The delays for beds tell a sad tale about the intersection of justice and mental health.

In the past few years, many cities — Portland, Denver, St. Louis — have started programs in which mental health workers respond to some 911 calls, either with police or instead of police, so that people who need help can be directed to the right resources, instead of jailed. But the programs can’t be truly successful unless states invest in mental health programs. And in the past couple of decades, most budgets for mental health services have been drastically reduced.

So people like Riewski clog up the criminal justice system and deteriorate in jail, diverting public safety resources and failing to solve any community problems.

It’s a tragedy with a solution, Antholt says, if the folks who write the budgets will pay attention.

“The lack of investment in mental health affects every stage of this problem,� Antholt says, citing gaps in drug treatment, arrests, jail costs and lack of beds in mental health facilities. “In many cases, incarceration can be avoided if mental health resources are provided in local communities.�

Cindy Riewski doesn’t know when her son will get help. She recalls the “old Matthew,� who was thoughtful and funny and often the center of attention.

“I really worry,� she says of her son, stuck in limbo in a county jail instead of a hospital where he belongs. “I miss him.�