FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CRT

TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2006 (202) 514-2007

WWW.USDOJ.GOV TDD (202) 514-1888

Justice Department Reaches Settlement

Regarding Conditions at Four
California Mental Health Facilities
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department today announced that it has reached a
settlement with the state of California concerning civil rights violations at four
California State Hospitals. These hospitals provide inpatient psychiatric care to
nearly five thousand individuals committed to the hospitals civilly or in connection
with criminal proceedings.

The extensive reforms required by the five-year agreement will ensure that
individuals in the hospitals are adequately protected from harm and provided
adequate services to support their recovery and mental health. The agreement will
be filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

"Individuals in the care of the State are entitled to be safe and provided with
adequate services to promote their mental health and rehabilitation," said Wan J.
Kim, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "We applaud the
leadership of state officials in acting promptly to remedy the problems and
implement the reforms embodied in the agreement."

"A mental health patient in many ways is more vulnerable than other citizens, and
therefore particularly needs to be protected from undue harm," said United States
Attorney Debra Wong Yang. "The settlement will lead these well-known and often-
used hospitals to enact sweeping changes that will improve the lives of hundreds of
patients."

The Justice Department investigations revealed significant civil rights violations.

The Department found a pattern and practice of preventable suicides and serious,
life-threatening assaults on patients by staff and other patients. In two instances,
patients were murdered by other patients. Care provided at the hospitals departs
substantially from generally accepted professional standards, and individuals are not
served in the most integrated settings appropriate to their needs and the
requirements of any court-ordered confinement. The state has agreed to address and
correct all of the violations identified by the Department.
The four hospitals serve individuals from throughout the state: Metropolitan State
Hospital in Los Angeles; Napa State Hospital in Napa, Calif.; Patton State Hospital
in San Bernardino, Calif.; and Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo, Calif.
The four-year investigation began with an investigation of Metropolitan State
Hospital in 2002, during the administration of then-Governor Gray Davis. The other
investigations followed: Napa in January 2004; Patton in April 2004; and
Atascadero in February 2005.

The Justice Department conducted its investigation pursuant to the Civil Rights of
Institutionalized Persons Act of 1980 (CRIPA). This statute allows the federal
government to identify and root out systemic abuses such as those identified in this
case, rather than focus on individual civil rights violations.

The Department has successfully resolved similar investigations of other mental

health facilities in North Carolina, New York, Hawaii, and Tennessee. The
Department of Justice's CRIPA enforcement effort reaches beyond mental health
facilities. Since 2001, the Department of Justice has opened 60 similar
investigations into the terms and conditions of confinement at nursing homes,
mental health facilities, residences for persons with developmental disabilities,
juvenile justice facilities, jails, and prisons. These figures represent a one-third
increase over the number of investigations initiated in the 1996-2000 time period.

More information about the Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department's
Civil Rights Division can be found at http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/split/index.html.

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