CLINTON COUNTY, Ill. — A back up at Illinois mental health facilities is keeping some patients behind bars instead of in treatment.

Susan Potthast has spent the past three years visiting her son in an Illinois state mental health facility. Each trip to Choate Mental Health and Developmental Center ends the same way.

“Every four weeks, I set up a visit. I drive to Choate. I visit him. And every four weeks I cry on the way home that he’s even in there to start with,” Potthast said.

Potthast’s son, whose name is being withheld to protect his privacy, has autism, impulse control disorder and the intellectual capacity of an eight-year-old. In 2022, he was charged with sexual abuse.

“When he got here, we were told that he was roughly a 32-year-old gentleman, but he had the intellect of a chi

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