Sex offender evaluations faulted
State audit finds no standard protocol for determining whether inmates or patients are a sexually violent threat to community.
The state auditor released a report Thursday criticizing the Department of State Hospitals’ evaluation system for determining whether prisoners due for parole or psychiatric patients already being held at Coalinga State Hospital are sexually violent predators.
The audit found that evaluations of current and potential “SVPs” are inconsistent, and that there is no standard protocol used to determine whether those being assessed meet the criteria for confinement.
It also found that evaluators lack clinical supervision and training, and that Coalinga has a “significant backlog” of annual evaluations that violates the rights of patients.
A 1995 law created the sexually violent predator classification, allowing the state to civilly commit to a state mental hospital for an indefinite period those inmates who had completed their prison sentences but met certain criteria. Those include a diagnosis of a mental illness that creates an ongoing risk of sexually predatory behavior.
Most of those deemed to be SVPs are admitted to the hospital in Coalinga and are reevaluated regularly to determine whether they still meet the legal standard for confinement. About 900 are now housed there.
A 2008 Times investigation found that numerous contract evaluators were earning more than half a million dollars a year. In response, state officials moved to bring many evaluations in house and lower the pay for contractors.
Meanwhile, a handbook containing a detailed protocol for evaluators was deemed invalid by the state Office of Administrative Law, which determined that certain provisions met the definition of “regulations” but had not gone through the required regulatory process. Rather than start that process, the then-Department of Mental Health in 2009 created a six-page substitute.
“State law requires evaluators to use a standardized assessment protocol when conducting evaluations,” the audit released Thursday found. “However, State Hospitals’ existing protocol … does not give guidance on specific risk assessment approaches or list specific risk assessment instruments evaluators may choose to use.”
In response, the Department of State Hospitals agreed to start that regulatory process by March 2016, to implement better supervision and training, and to analyze whether evaluators are effective in court and whether their commitment recommendations fall within “a normal acceptable range.”
The audit also found that the Coalinga facility, built a decade ago to house civilly committed SVPs, is having difficulty recruiting evaluators, and noted 261 annual evaluations that were overdue as of December 2014. State hospital officials responded that they are looking into hiring contract evaluators to “liquidate the backlog.”
Michael Aye, a private Sacramento attorney who specializes in SVP defense, said the current process allows evaluators too much discretion in choosing evaluation tools to determine whether the men pose a continued risk. “It’s nice to have some documentation of what we already knew was true,” he said of the audit.
The Department of State Hospitals has only once recommended release of an SVP committed to Coalinga, Aye said, leaving the men to seek their freedom through the courts.
Craig Osaki, deputy in charge of the SVP branch at the Los Angeles County public defender’s office, said that given the indeterminate terms of confinement, “it’s really important to make sure these evaluations are done correctly.”
The science of sex offending is “very much a niche field, even in psychology,” he added, making training essential, as evaluations based on bad scientific underpinnings almost never get thrown out in court.
“As long as the evaluator comes back with an evaluation that says the guy qualifies as an SVP and the prosecutor provides the gory details of the underlying offenses,” he said, “that just seems to get by, despite our best efforts to point out what is going on with the science in these cases.”
‘State Hospitals’ existing protocol … does not give guidance on specific risk assessment approaches or list specific risk assessment instruments evaluators may choose to use.’
— State audit