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Atascadero State Hospital, formally known as California Department of State Hospitals - Atascadero (DSHA), is located on the Central Coast of California, in San Luis Obispo County, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. DSHA is an all-male, maximum-security facility, forensic institution that houses mentally ill convicts who have been committed to psychiatric facilities by California's courts. Located on a 700+ acre grounds in the city of Atascadero, California, it is the largest employer in that town. DSHA is not a general purpose public hospital, and the only patients admitted are those that are referred to the hospital by the Superior Court, Board of Prison Terms, or the Department of Corrections. History Atascadero State Hospital (ASH) opened in 1954, as a state-run, self-contained public sector forensic psychiatric facility. It is enclosed within a security perimeter, and accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Patients are referred to the hospital by the Superior Court, Board of Prison Terms, or the Department of Corrections. According to a 1978 Federal study of sex offender treatment programs: "An informal history of [ASH], distributed in 1975, reports that Atascadero opened “with the philosophy that good therapy could be carried on in a security setting and that modern methods of psychiatric treatment, based on a therapeutic community' concept, would most likely succeed.“ The problems of 'therapy vs. security' and 'prison vs. hospital' immediately developed and hindered successful treatment. The belief that criminals should be punished for their crime and not 'babied' haunted the hospital program. For several years beginning in 1959, a series of unfortunate and tragic accidents occurred at the hospital. A number of escapes and violent incidents in addition to widespread community concern led to a special investigation of the hospital's problems which ultimately resulted in a revamping of its organization, administration, and treatment programs” beginning in 1961. The 1960's were also a troubled decade for Atascadero, plagued by internal dissension, staff rebellions, and occasional scandal." As early as the 1970s, ASH was referred to as a "Dachau for Queers." The term appeared in a March 16, 1972 L.A. Free Press article, with an Editor's Note stating: "The following story is an edited version of Don Jackson’s article "Dachau For Queers" which originally appeared in The Gay Liberation Book by Ramparts Press." A 2009 California Law Review article commented, "One reason for this appellation was that inmates [sic] were subjected to experimental therapies - electrical and pharmacological shock treatments in addition to lobotomies - to "cure" them of their "sex perversion."" Recent appearances of this term include a 2011 PBS American Experiences documentary "Stonewall Uprising", which was rebroadcast in 2020, and a 2012 New Yorker article. In 1976 Michael Serber MD (then ASH Clinical Director) coauthored a paper commenting: "The history of treatment for the homosexual at this institution has mainly centered around inadequate and sometimes cruel attempts at conversion to heterosexuality or asexuality. There is an intermittent history of aversive conditioning. These aversive techniques had extended even to the use of succinylcholine and electroconvulsive shock treatment as punishment for homosexual offenders who had 'deviated' within the hospital. At the very minimum, homosexuals were frequently degraded by staff whose attitudes concerning homosexuality were punitive and judgmental. More homosexual patients than heterosexual had been defined as unamenable to treatment after a period of hospitalization and then were sent to prison via the courts under the ambiguous judicial system that determines the fate of sexual offenders in the state of California.” Through an NIMH "Hospital Improvement" grant (1971–75), Dr. Serber and his coauthor Claudia Keith MA led improvements in ASH's programs. ASH's treatment programs have reflected the psychiatric assumptions of the times. Initially constructed to treat mentally disordered sex offenders (MDSOs), initial programs focused on separation from society, albeit in an environment which provided freedom of movement. This was restricted after patient escapes. Initial research and treatment programs aimed at understanding and reducing the risk of reoffense in sexual offenders. In the early 1980s, the focus of the hospital's treatment programs shifted to patients found not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) and incompetent to stand trial; ASH was a pioneer in developing effective treatment programs for the latter. In the 1990s, California passed sexually violent predator (SVP) laws, imposing civil commitment upon prisoners meeting criteria upon the expiration of their determinate prison term. SVPs were housed in ASH until the new state hospital in Coalinga opened around 2004. In the mid-1980s, a US Department of Justice investigation under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) led to important and positive clinical reforms at ASH. Sidney F. Herndon was the Executive Director throughout the 1980s and brought in a strong clinical and administrative team and built up the medical staff under Gordon Gritter MD as Clinical Director. David Saunders MD led the development of a forensic psychiatry fellowship, affiliated with UCSF-Fresno and UCLA. Harold Carmel MD and Mel Hunter JD MPA established the Atascadero Clinical Safety Project (ACSP) which conducted groundbreaking research into staff injuries from patient aggression. After Carmel left to become CEO of the Colorado Mental Health Institute at Pueblo in 1991, Hunter and Colleen Love developed important programs to improve staff safety, which won awards from the American Psychiatric Association. and, in 1998, JCAHO's Ernest A. Codman Award in the Hospital Category. In this era, ASH was an important center of research and teaching. Many clinical staff left ASH in the late 1990s with the advent of the SVPs, which was believed by many clinicians to compromise the hospital's mission of providing excellent care for persons with serious mental illness, as opposed to containment of sexually dangerous offenders. When salaries for California prison mental health staff, especially psychiatrists, increased dramatically as a result of federal litigation, ASH lost many of its psychiatrists and other clinical staff. Psychiatrist salaries have been increased to levels just under the prison psychiatrist salaries, and ASH's psychiatrist staffing is now (2014) being rebuilt. Another traumatic period came with another US DOJ CRIPA investigation in the mid-2000s. In 2007, Mel Hunter, by this time ASH Executive Director, was removed from his position as a result of his refusal to alter the clinical operations of the hospital at the behest of the DOJ consultants. He was replaced by new hospital leadership. In the event, the impositio.... Discover the Earl T Roske popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Earl T Roske books.