A federal judge is putting control of California’s troubled inmate mental health programs into the hands of an outsider: President Biden’s former chief of prisons, Colette Peters. With inmate suicide rates at an all-time high, U.S. District Senior Judge Kimberly Mueller said her aim is to force changes in California’s prison mental health system, which a federal judge in 1995 deemed to be so poor as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment. Mueller named Peters as a federal “receiver-nominee” to develop an oversight plan for psychiatric services for California’s prison population, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Peters, who stepped down as Federal Bureau of Prisons director the day Donald Trump returned to the White House, has accepted a four-month position in California. Mueller proposes that Peters work with opposing sides to come up with a plan of attack. Lawyers for the state and for inmates have 10 days to comment on the judge’s appointment. State lawyers told Mueller that while Peters was an acceptable choice, they reserved the right to contest California’s loss of control over a critical and expensive component of its sprawling incarceration system.
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