A federal judge Friday ordered California to explain why it has hundreds of empty beds in its psychiatric hospitals but a backlog of mentally ill inmates in prisons waiting for care.
The order by U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller follows a hearing in Sacramento this week in which she chastised the state for "backsliding" in the treatment of mentally ill inmates.
Mueller said she was relying on reports from a court-appointed special master that California again had waiting lists of prisoners needing appropriate psychiatric housing and treatment. At the same time, the Department of State Hospitals, which runs prison psychiatric units, also had more than 250 empty beds at the Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo County, between Los Angeles and San Francisco.