Coalinga State Hospital
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007) |
 |
Please help improve this article by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (August 2007) |
| Geography | |
|---|---|
| Location | Coalinga, California, Fresno, California, United States |
| Services | |
| Beds | 1500 |
| History | |
| Founded | 2005 |
| Links | |
| Website | home page |
| Lists | Hospitals in California |
Coalinga State Hospital is a state mental hospital in Coalinga, California.
The facility opened on September 5, 2005 and was California’s newest state hospital, the first to be constructed in the state in more than 50 years. It was built to ensure that sexually violent predators stayed out of the community.[1] The hospital is home to fifty mentally ill offenders from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), with the rest of the patients made up of men committed under the sexually violent predator (SVP) laws (first Megan's Law and later Jessica's Law), where the men are deemed too likely to reoffend to be released and are housed indefinitely at the hospital until they engage in and complete rigorous sex offender treatment and agree to rigid conditional parole requirements.
Contents |
[edit] About the facility
The state began construction on Coalinga State Hospital in the fall of 2001. According to the hospital's official Web site, CSH has 1.2 million gross square feet (gsf) of floor space. This includes 900,000 gsf for clinical services and programs, 158,000 gsf for support services, 75,000 gsf for administration, and 67,000 gsf for plant operations.
The hospital is located at the edge of the Coastal Mountain Range in the heart of California just outside the City of Coalinga, nestled up against the adjacent Pleasant Valley State Prison. Coalinga is located ten miles west of Interstate 5. It is four hours north of Los Angeles, two hours south of San Francisco, and about one hour southwest of Fresno, California's sixth largest city.
The hospital uses a five-phase treatment program for SVPs that was developed when SVPs were still mostly all treated at Atascadero State Hospital. The rigorous program focuses on helping SVPs manage their impulses, take responsibility for their actions, and see their crimes and victims from a realistic perspective.
[edit] Intake and Occupancy
Inmates are committed to Coalinga State Hospital within six months of the end of their prison terms[citation needed]. Currently, California law allows SVPs to be committed to the hospital indefinitely (under Jessica's Law) as long as they are receiving 'treatment'. 75% of the 600-plus inmates refuse treatment[2], which is intensive, and requires admission of guilt and the use of institutionally mandated language, as well as polygraph and phallometric testing. As of November 2007, 26 of the 37 budgeted staff psychiatrist positions were vacant, with some inmates having to camp out waiting for a clinician to show up. As of April 2009 the facility had released only 13 inmates in its history.
[edit] Louis Theroux BBC documentary
The hospital formed the basis of a Louis Theroux BBC television documentary entitled A Place for Paedophiles, in which the lives of once convicted paedophiles are documented, whilst being indefinitely incarcerated at the hospital until further notice. The hour long programme aired for the first time on BBC Two in the United Kingdom on 19 April 2009, as the seventh in a series of Theroux specials.[3]
[edit] References
- ^ Lee Romney (March 05, 2006). "Coalinga State Hospital Is Sitting Nearly Empty". Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/05/local/me-coalinga5?pg=2. Retrieved 18 September 2009.
- ^ Scott Gold and Lee Romney (15 November 2007). "Treatment replaced by turmoil". Los Angeles Times. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-mental15nov15,0,6184691,full.story. Retrieved 03 September 2009.
- ^ Theroux, Louis (17 April 2009). "Where they keep the paedophiles". BBC News Online. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8004064.stm. Retrieved 22 April 2009.
[edit] External links
Coordinates: 36°7′51″N 120°14′25″W / 36.13083°N 120.24028°W
