Psychiatric Care of Inmates Needs Reform, Jurist Rules : Penal system: State corrections officials are strongly criticized. Suit could affect 28,000 mentally ill prisoners.

California prison officials have long shown deliberate indifference to the suffering of thousands of mentally ill convicts and should make sweeping reforms in psychiatric care, a federal court magistrate has ruled.

The findings of Magistrate Judge John Moulds of the U.S. District Court in Sacramento came in response to a class-action lawsuit on behalf of about 28,000 mentally ill prisoners--the largest such legal action filed by convicts in California history.

“(Prison officials) have for years ignored the considered advice of their own experts about the woeful deficiencies in their system,” wrote Moulds in a blistering decision handed down Monday afternoon.

“In the interim,” he continued, “untold thousands of mentally ill inmates have gone undiscovered, undiagnosed and untreated while, at the same time, being subjected to conditions that aggravate their illnesses.”

The magistrate said state officials presented no effective defense against the lawsuit’s charges.

“Defendants have effectively acknowledged that the delivery of mental health care within the California Department of Corrections is, and for many years has been, grossly inadequate,” he said.

State Department of Corrections officials had no immediate comment.

“We’ve been reviewing the decision since we received it (Monday),” said information officer Christine May, “and until we have a chance to complete the review, we won’t have a comment.”

Moulds is calling for a court-appointed “special master” to oversee a raft of reforms, such as screening new inmates for mental illness and establishing an efficient system for dispensing and monitoring psychiatric medication.

Under federal procedure, Moulds’ ruling must be affirmed by a federal judge, and prison officials have 20 days to file a response.

Nevertheless, it was considered a significant victory for prisoner rights advocates, whose lawsuit contended that the prison system has imposed cruel and unusual punishment on mentally ill inmates, who make up about one-fourth of the prison population of more than 120,000.

“We’re thrilled,” said Alison Hardy, attorney with the Prison Law Office, a small inmate rights firm that filed the suit three years ago. “It’s a tremendous decision, and we hope it’s implemented as soon as possible so we can relieve the terrible suffering (of) our clients.”

The suit, which was joined by three private firms in San Francisco that charged no fees, sought reforms in the treatment of mentally retarded inmates as well as the mentally ill, but Moulds asked for further information from attorneys on that issue. The suit alleged that prison officials have no method for identifying mentally retarded inmates and have no idea how many are incarcerated in the state prisons.

The main thrust of the suit was on behalf of mentally ill prisoners and presented evidence that such inmates were routinely denied medication and treatment and were instead locked in solitary confinement and shot with stun guns.

Evidence in the case showed that in 1990 the psychiatrist at the California state prison in Solano refused for two years to dispense medication to any mentally ill inmate, no matter how disturbed, because some convicts had hoarded or abused drugs.

Under Moulds’ recommendations, the special master would be responsible for appointing experts to help prison officials develop plans to carry out reforms.

Among his other recommendations, Moulds said the Department of Corrections should be required to:

* Develop adequate staffing ratios between employees and mentally ill inmates.

* Fill all mental health staff positions now authorized in the budget.

* Recruit mental health professionals to work in penitentiaries.

* Train prison staff members to recognize signs of mental illness.

* Develop a policy governing the lockup of mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement and the use of such weapons as stun guns on them.

* Develop a plan to guarantee prompt access to psychiatric hospitalization.

“They are sensible recommendations,” said attorney Hardy, “in that they permit the Department of Corrections to fashion a plan that it can work with.”

Some of the reforms could be costly and are being urged at a time when state prison officials are expecting spiraling costs connected with a flood of new inmates because of get-tough “three strikes” legislation.

Prison Law Office attorneys insisted, however, that public safety would benefit from the reforms.

“The vast majority of prisoners are going to be released,” said Hardy, “and if we have a system that exacerbates their mental illness before it releases them, the public is in a worse position than if they were treated.”

Moulds also recommended making permanent a previous preliminary injunction dealing with the treatment of prisoners receiving heat-sensitive medication.

The injunction came after three inmates on such medication died at the Correctional Medical Facility at Vacaville during a severe heat wave in the summer of 1991.

Prison officials are required under the injunction to ensure that prisoners taking such medication are not subjected to high temperatures.