Lee Romney, Author at CalMatters

Patients at the Central Coast’s Atascadero State Hospital walk the halls in 2006. Due to COVID, patients have at times been confined to their units, but still mingle in bathrooms, the dining hall and common day rooms. Of the state’s psychiatric hospitals, Atascadero houses the largest number of mentally ill inmates from state prisons. Photo by Peggy Peattie, ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo

Could California’s psych hospitals be ordered to admit inmates with COVID?

by Lee Romney November 18, 2020September 28, 2021

The Department of State Hospitals is facing pressure in federal court to speed up admissions of mentally ill inmates from the COVID-riddled state prison system.

Sandra Johnson, at her office in San Francisco, urges that people not be "held hostage by our mistakes.” Photo by Lee Romney for CALmatters

Ex-inmates win new law requiring California employers to “ban the box”

by Lee Romney October 14, 2017June 23, 2020