SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 A judge has initiated a federal court takeover of California\u2019s troubled prison mental health system by naming the former head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons to serve as receiver, giving her four months to craft a plan to provide adequate care for tens of thousands of prisoners with serious mental illness.<\/p>\n
Senior U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller issued her order March 19, identifying Colette Peters as the nominated receiver. Peters, who was Oregon\u2019s first female corrections director<\/a> and known as a reformer<\/a>, ran the scandal-plagued federal prison system<\/a> for 30 months until President Donald Trump took office in January. During her tenure, she closed a women\u2019s prison<\/a> in Dublin, east of Oakland, that had become known as the \u201crape club.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Bien, who represents prisoners with mental illness in the long-running prison lawsuit, said Peters is a good choice. Bien said Peters\u2019 time in Oregon and Washington, D.C., showed that she \u201ckind of buys into the fact that there are things we can do better in the American system.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe took strong objection to many things that happened under her tenure at the BOP, but I do think that this is a different job and she\u2019s capable of doing it,\u201d said Bien, whose firm also represents<\/a> women who were housed at the shuttered federal women\u2019s prison.<\/p>\n California corrections officials called Peters \u201chighly qualified\u201d in a statement, while Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s office did not immediately comment. Mueller gave the parties until March 28 to show cause why Peters should not be appointed.<\/p>\n Peters is not talking to the media at this time, Bien said. The judge said Peters is to be paid $400,000 a year, prorated for the four-month period.<\/p>\n About 34,000 people incarcerated in California prisons have been diagnosed with serious mental illnesses, representing more than a third of California\u2019s prison population, who face harm because of the state\u2019s noncompliance, Mueller said.<\/p>\n Appointing a receiver is a rare step taken when federal judges feel they have exhausted other options. A receiver took control of Alabama\u2019s correctional system in 1976<\/a>, and they have otherwise been used to govern prisons and jails only about a dozen times<\/a>, mostly to combat poor conditions caused by overcrowding. Attorneys representing inmates in Arizona<\/a> have asked a judge to take over prison health care there.<\/p>\n Mueller\u2019s appointment of a receiver comes nearly 20 years after a different federal judge seized control<\/a> of California\u2019s prison medical system and installed a receiver, currently J. Clark Kelso, with broad powers to hire, fire, and spend the state\u2019s money.<\/p>\n California officials initially said in August that they would not oppose a receivership for the mental health program provided that the receiver was also Kelso, saying then that federal control \u201chas successfully transformed medical care\u201d in California prisons. But Kelso withdrew from consideration in September, as did two subsequent candidates. Kelso said he could not act \u201czealously and with fidelity as receiver in both cases.\u201d<\/p>\n Both cases have been running for so long that they are now overseen by a second generation of judges. The original federal judges, in a legal battle that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, more than a decade ago forced California to significantly reduce prison crowding<\/a> in a bid to improve medical and mental health care for incarcerated people.<\/p>\n State officials in court filings defended their improvements over the decades. Prisoners\u2019 attorneys countered that treatment remains poor, as evidenced in part by the system\u2019s record-high suicide rate, topping 31 suicides per 100,000 prisoners, nearly double that in federal prisons.<\/p>\n \u201cMore than a quarter of the 30 class-members who died by suicide in 2023 received inadequate care because of understaffing,\u201d prisoners\u2019 attorneys wrote in January, citing the prison system\u2019s own analysis. One prisoner did not receive mental health appointments for seven months \u201cbefore he hanged himself with a bedsheet.\u201d<\/p>\n They argued that the November passage of a ballot measure<\/a> increasing criminal penalties for some drug and theft crimes is likely to increase the prison population and worsen staffing shortages.<\/p>\n California officials argued in January that Mueller isn\u2019t legally justified in appointing a receiver because \u201cprogress has been slow at times but it has not stalled.\u201d<\/p>\n Mueller has countered that she had no choice but to appoint an outside professional to run the prisons\u2019 mental health program, given officials\u2019 intransigence even after she held top officials in contempt of court<\/a> and levied fines topping $110 million in June. Those extreme actions, she said, only triggered more delays.<\/p>\n The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on March 19 upheld Mueller\u2019s contempt ruling but said she didn\u2019t sufficiently justify calculating the fines by doubling the state\u2019s monthly salary savings from understaffing prisons. It upheld the fines to the extent that they reflect the state\u2019s actual salary savings but sent the case back to Mueller to justify any higher penalty.<\/p>\n Mueller had been set to begin additional civil contempt proceedings against state officials for their failure to meet two other court requirements: adequately staffing the prison system\u2019s psychiatric inpatient program and improving suicide prevention measures<\/a>. Those could bring additional fines topping tens of millions of dollars.<\/p>\n But she said her initial contempt order has not had the intended effect of compelling compliance. Mueller wrote as far back as July that additional contempt rulings would also be likely to be ineffective as state officials continued to appeal and seek delays, leading \u201cto even more unending litigation, litigation, litigation.\u201d<\/p>\n She went on to foreshadow her latest order naming a receiver in a preliminary order: \u201cThere is one step the court has taken great pains to avoid. But at this point,\u201d Mueller wrote, \u201cthe court concludes the only way to achieve full compliance in this action is for the court to appoint its own receiver.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was produced by <\/em>KFF Health News<\/em><\/a>, which publishes <\/em>California Healthline<\/em><\/a>, an editorially independent service of the <\/em>California Health Care Foundation<\/em><\/a>.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/em>If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting \u201c988.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n