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Font ResizeAs California reduces its prison population, Los Angeles County officials said Wednesday they are considering legal action in light of revelations the state is dropping off mentally ill offenders from state prisons and hospitals at county hospital emergency rooms.
County Department of Mental Health Director Marvin Southard said those offenders - some judged insane or unfit to stand trial - have wound up in the community when a judge ordered their release or there was difficulty finding a board-and-care facility to house them.
Southard's department has lost $175 million in funding over the last two years and he expects to spend $8 million to $24 million to provide mental health care to 1,200 mentally ill county parolees whose state-based mental health treatment is about to end.
"These are walking time bombs going into our medical facilities," Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said. "Some of these individuals will be re-arrested and put in the system again. This is an irresponsible action by the state."
But state Department of Mental Health spokeswoman Jennifer Turner said the agency is working with counties to ensure mental health services are "made available to those most in need, and that services being offered are in settings that help advance each patients' treatment goals."
The announcement came as Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton, R-Rancho Cucamonga, introduced a bill that would inform local law enforcement officials when
Dutton introduced the bill in response to a homicide that took place last month at an unsupervised group home in Upland, where seven male offenders were living. All the men had been released from mental hospitals under the state Department of Mental Health's Forensic Conditional Release Program.
"This is a common-sense public safety issue," said Dutton spokesman Larry Venus. "The community should be made aware of it, and at a minimum law enforcement agencies should be notified when a CONREP individual is placed in their community. That is not happening right now."
