Judges Plan Meetings to Monitor Inmate Care

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Federal judges pledged public cooperation in an effort to bring quicker reforms to California’s management of health care and mental health programs for inmates – the latest development in the federal takeover of the state’s inmate health care system.

U.S. District Court Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton decided to hold quarterly meetings to monitor and evaluate reforms to inmate medical care. The judges also appointed a receiver to oversee prison health care and a special master to monitor treatment of mentally ill inmates earlier this year.

The Schwarzenegger administration has already submitted a request to state legislators for $364 million for health care improvements and warned that it could be just a down payment on future reforms.

State officials estimate that nearly 20 percent of California’s 169,000 inmates suffer from mental illness and that the proposed reforms would be the biggest expenditure on mental health care for inmates since the lawsuits were filed.

The prison system has been described as “inhumane” by some experts and advocates, and experiences an average of one inmate death per week due to medical neglect, according to reports.