Nationally-recognized standards for providing mental health services in jails include providing adequate intake procedures for determining those in need of services, unfettered access by the prisoner to the provider of health care, sufficient training for correctional employees so that they can recognize and temporarily treat emergency mental health needs, and written statements of treatment limitations. While the law demands that the sheriff, or county, provide such services, it is also ready to look askance at those who provide them too readily. The legal system here is schizophrenic; it seeks to protect the rights of those needing treatment, while also protecting those who do not need treatment against added stigmatization. The result is an uneasy balance. Where government agencies fail to provide mental health services, they may be ordered to do so or to close the institution. The line is more difficult to draw where an individual sheriff or mental health provider is involved, however, because the provision of service is sometimes exceptionally difficult. It is suggested that government agencies should be held liable for damages without regard to fault, while individual defendants should be liable only if theirs was the highest form of neglect or recklessness. Research issues include historical analyses of sheriffs' liabilities for deputies' actions; the effect of no-fault workers compensation types of schemes; the current status of State laws on transfers from jails to mental hospitals, including a due process analysis, and an analysis of the theoretical reasons for imposing upon the sheriff a duty for providing medical care without regard to whether the prisoner had such medical care available before incarceration. Footnotes are included. (Author abstract modified)