In 2005, the Department of Mental Health ("DMH") opened Coalinga State Hospital ("CSH") with what was effectively a "skeleton crew." Due to the remote location, the DMH had been unable to hire sufficient staff to properly open its first new facility in nearly fifty years. The greatest problems were encountered when attempting to hire professional staff, e.g., doctors, dentists, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric technicians, and other licensed staff.

The move towards making the new mental health facility a pseudo prison became public knowledge over five years prior to its opening, when DMH Director Stephen Mayberg issued a press release in 2000, announcing construction plans for a new facility at Coalinga following a joint venture agreement between the California Department of Corrections, the California Department of Mental Health, and the community of Coalinga. This was followed by Assembly Bill ("AB") 430, which modified section 6600.5 of the Welfare & Institutions Code effective August 10, 2001, requiring that the facility " shall be located on a site or sites determined by the Director of Corrections and the Director of Mental Health, . . ."

Then, in 2005, when the DMH was unable to staff the new facility, the lobbyists again went to the Legislature asking for help. As a result, the California Legislature enacted legislation relieving the DMH of licensing requirements by authorizing, "the voluntary suspension on health facility beds at Coalinga State Hospital for a period of up to 6 years, . . ." This effectively allowed the present CSH policy of staffing the hospital units not by professionals, but rather by Department of Police Services ("DPS") police officers.

A typical licensed mental health unit would normally be staffed by a minimum of a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a registered nurse, and four to six psychiatric technicians. Instead, the Legislature allowed CSH to open unlicensed units and staff them with two police officers. Originally, these units were designated as "Residential Housing Units " ("RHU"), but since that sounded far too much like the warehousing of bodies that it really was, the name was quickly changed to the more politically correct "Residential Recovery Unit ("RRU"). CSH became a high security prison in all but name.
Having mental health units now being run by police officers, who are untrained and not licensed to provide any type of health care, essentially threw the new "state of the art" Coalinga facility back into the dark ages. The police officers, expecting police officer type jobs, instead, found themselves employed as warders over mental health patients. Often telling patients that they [the police officers] were in charge, and even had the authority to override medical orders. Even though none of the patients at CSH were presently under any criminal sentence, and as such, were not eligible for any type of punishment whatsoever, many of these police officers considered themselves to effectively be guards and the hospital patients their prisoners. They simply developed a punitive, bully, mindset.
The new hospital was taken over by its own police department. The environment is a prison environment with all signs of any purported therapeutic environment long gone history. The mental health administrators have lost control of their hospital to the Department of Police Services, and sadly, they don't appear to recognize the reality.

The patients at CHS are persons civilly committed under the Sexually Violent Predator Act ("SVPA") after the completion of their prison sentence. Most are registered voters who have completely served their penal sentence. Despite the public clamoring for more punishment for all sex offenders, these civilly committed patients are no longer legally subject to any further punishment. Nevertheless, many of their police guards at CSH consider them to still be in prison, and that they, the guards, have a public supported moral obligation to continue punishing these individuals. They simply treat these patients much the same as the Nazis treated the Jews in fascist Germany, telling them that they have no rights, and that they [the guards] can do what they want. With no licensing and thus no oversight at CSH, they get away with this abuse.

Because of this omnipresent punitive mind set, mental health system employees, particularly the DPS police officers, tend to carry this pervasive public prescription for punishment to the extreme. A few abuses and atrocities occasionally become public knowledge, but the public still demanding punishment after becoming caught up in the political rhetoric apathetically says, "So be it!" from this attitude, abusive employees begin to believe themselves the designated instrument of this punishment.

To further enhance the problem, there is a tendency for persons who were either in therapy themselves, or were victimized as children, e.g., the nerd, the fat kid, the weak kid, the disturbed kid, the generally unpopular types who were picked on or bullied, to gravitate towards law enforcement or mental health careers. This comes from a deep seated psychological, possibly unconscious, desire to be the one in control, to even have revenge against the type of person they perceive to have controlled them as youngsters. A life long psychological need to have power over others. For this reason, their needs to be far better psychological screening of mental health job candidates, and far more training in human relations.

These psychologically unfit employees tend to become sadistic and cruel. However, the problem does not stop with this group. Otherwise normal psychologically stable employees also become caught-up in the corruptive influence one derives from power and the frenzy of the punitive mindset which enables this power corruption. Particularly when this attitude is supported in the ranks of supervision and/or administration. And since DMH supervision and administration personnel almost exclusively promote from within, the corruption is throughout the system.

Meaningful reforms will require the taxpayers who pay for this failed system to demand the government set very rigid standards and goals. The public must demand the government; all three branches - executive, legislative, and judicial - stop deferring to the so-called "expertise" of DMH officials, officers, and their unions. Not only do these employees and officials have financial and job security incentives to preserve the status quo, but they themselves have the inherent human tendency to become corrupted by the power granted to them in a system without oversight. That otherwise normal people could thus be corrupted through such unfettered power was shown by a Stanford University experiment conducted more than thirty years ago. Yet the public and their elected politicians of today have ignored history's lessons.

Stanford University psychologist Philip G. Zimbardo conducted a classic study of the problem in what was called "The Stanford Prison Experiment." Whereas Zimbardo subjected normal, decent, intelligent college men to a simulated prison situation. Through a flip of a coin, half of this volunteer group became guards, and were issued uniforms, billy clubs, whistles, mirrored sunglasses so the prisoners could not make eye contact, and a list of rules to enforce. The other half became prisoners who were forced to wear humiliating clothing, and were locked in barren cells.

On the second day of this role-playing experiment, the "guards," the "prisoners," and the control experimenters became corrupted. The "guards" implemented degrading and cruel routines. The "prisoners" broke down, rebelled, or became apathetic, and forced the experimenters into working overtime to maintain "prison" security.

Sound familiar? It should! There are extensive parallels to the present situation at CSH. Although not called a prison, the conditions at CHS are prison like - with essentially the very same problems. The taxpayers should demand realistic oversight lest the federal government step in as it did with the California prison system.

Based on the many reports carried in the media, it appears that California's huge prison system became a giant version of Zimbardo's also failed experiment - but in real life. The California Department of Mental Health is headed that same direction.

Zimbardo reported that in his prison experiment, the role players developed a growing confusion between reality, illusion, and self-identity. "This prison which we had created ... was absorbing us as creatures of its own identity." The experiment essentially went out of control and was halted well before its planned two-week duration.

"At the end of only six days we had to close down our mock prison because what we saw was frightening. It was no longer apparent to us or most of the subjects where they ended and their roles began. The majority had indeed become `prisoners' or `guards' no longer able to clearly differentiate between role-playing and self. There were dramatic changes in virtually every aspect of their behavior, thinking and feeling; human values were suspended, self-concepts were challenged, and the ugliest most base, pathological side of human nature surfaced. We were horrified because we saw some [men] ("guards") treat other men as if they were despicable animals, taking pleasure in cruelty, while other [men] ("prisoners") became servile, dehumanized robots who thought only of escape, of their own individual survival, and their mounting hatred of the guards." (See EN 1.)

The Stanford Prison Experiment utilized men who were normal people and considered to be similar to intelligent citizens, lawmakers, law enforcers, and prison staff members.

"When such people were randomly selected as prisoners or guards, the power of the situation overwhelmed their root socialization, values, and personality traits. And that's the message - the corrupting power of the prison situation - that we've taken to prison officials, judges, lawyers, and committees of the U.S. Senate and House. That `good people' could be so vulnerable to the `evil forces' in a simulated prison environment challenges us to reevaluate assumptions about causes of social and personal pathology." (See EN 2.)

There were many lessons learned in the Stanford Prison Experiment; its study became standard material in college psychology classes. Even the military became interested in the context of enemy brainwashing of Viet Nam POWs. The following decade produced sweeping prison reforms, but, now, thirty years later, history and these lessons have been mostly forgotten. The same problems are now appearing in Mental Hospitals with patients being treated worse than prisoners.

Because of the punitive mind set, inadequate oversight, lack of adequate staff training and supervision, and lack of checks-and-balances, the California Department of Mental Health is becoming exactly what the experimental findings exposed by the Sanford Prison Experiment predicted. The power given DMH officials who have been granted a free reign with little to no meaningful oversight at CSH, has resulted in the "corrupting power" reported by Zimbardo. This time not even in a prison, but rather in a hospital setting.

In one example, in June of 2007, it was reported that, "In a series of at least three incidents which resulted in four vicious attacks on Black patients at Coalinga State Hospital ("CSH"), overzealous officers from the Hospital's Department of Police Services ("DPS") exhibit a pattern of racial violence, and apparently do so with government impunity." (See EN 3.

Zimbardo reported the power corruption caused the "guards" to "treat the other men as if they were despicable animals." Thus, if a system treats its wards like animals over a long period of time, these oppressed people eventually become that animal as Zimbardo's experiment showed. When these patients, who have been reduced to having only animal instincts, are eventually released, they are ill equipped to reenter society as a functioning productive citizen. They have, instead, been made worse than they were prior to their hospital experience. Surely this cannot be society's goal when committing citizens to the State's mental health facilities.

Just as in the Stanford Prison Experiment, in real life the hospital staff is only one part of the overall problem. There is also the Legislature making laws which have become so draconian they provide no incentives to the majority of the committed patients. The hospital administration which promulgates oppressive rules, regulations, and procedures. Then there are the patients themselves, who in real life fall into the same psychological traps as the volunteer "prisoners" in the Stanford Prison Experiment. They "become servile, dehumanized robots . . .."

Some additional examples: (1) For several months, patients have been complaining about excessive flies in the dining halls, dead flies being found inside the food carts and in patients' food; (2) Dining Hall workers complain they are routinely forced to clean the dining hall eating tables with dirty rags, and that the entire process is extremely unsanitary. The food service line level employees have reported these problems to their supervisors, as have the patients to the hospital administration. However, the Hospital has been unable or unwilling to fix the problems. Complaints have been made to the Fresno County Health Department, which claims to have no jurisdiction. The Fresno County Health Department referred the complainants to State Licensing, which has no jurisdiction because the Legislature allowed the Coalinga Hospital to open as an unlicensed facility. With no oversight, the hospital employees and administration simply have the corruptive power to do whatever they want, and apparently to do it with impunity. There are a great many other examples, which if listed, would turn this already lengthy article into a full size book.

The fact that power corrupts has been demonstrated by every dictator who has existed throughout history. However, people have generally paid little attention to microcosms of this phenomenon unless it directly affects them or their families. When citizens actually look around themselves, they will see power corruption in many paces, e.g., politics, the corporate scandals on Wall Street, and the California prison system. Saddam Hussein was removed from power because, according to the Bush administration, the world could no longer tolerate his power corruption. Corrupt politicians are removed from office when caught. It is time to also remove the power corruption from the Department of Mental Health. Corruption should not be tolerated anywhere, whether it be corruption based on power, dishonesty, or both.

In California, the present mental health system, particularly at Coalinga State Hospital, is broken - a failure. It follows the failure pattern discovered in Zimbardo's empirical study model done over thirty years ago. Positive reforms must be made. The known destructive procedures need to be removed. First and foremost, there must be effective public oversight.

Tom Watson, July 15, 2007

ENDNOTES

EN. 1. Zimbardo, P.G., (1971) "The psychological power and pathology of imprisonment." A statement prepared for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee No. 3, Hearings of Prison Reform, San Francisco, Calif., October 25, 1971.

EN. 2. Myers, D.G. (1978). "Social Psychology" McGraw Hill, N.Y. (Pg. 197)

EN. 3. Watson, Tom, (June 2007), State Police Bullies Victimize Black Patients At Coalinga State Hospital,  http://www.oocities.org/three_strikes_legal/State_Police_Bullies.html