Disability Rights California finds jail-based IST program offers little treatment and frequent isolation
Disability Rights California examined the Early Access and Stabilization Services (EASS) program, through which DSH has put more than $500 million since 2022 into limited treatment for people found incompetent to stand trial while they remain in county jails. The investigation found that roughly 25 percent or more of participants in the jails it monitored spent 22 to 23 hours a day in their cells, and that services were thin, typically a weekly telehealth psychiatric contact.
The report says restoration rates in EASS declined from 17.7 percent initially to below 5 percent in recent periods, and that fewer than 0.6 percent of participants reached diversion programs. It found probable cause that some participants experience neglect and urged the state to put more into diversion and community-based restoration rather than treating EASS as an equivalent to hospital care.
The findings are a direct critique of the jail-stabilization strategy that California adopted after the 2021 IST workgroup.
Source: A Half-Measure Solution to a Long-Standing Crisis: A Report by Disability Rights California about the Department of State Hospitals' Early Access and Stabilization Services Program — Disability Rights California
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