LePage administration revives plan to move dangerous forensic patients from Riverview to the state prison
The bill, L.D. 1577, would let the health department move forensic patients from the 92-bed Riverview Psychiatric Center to the prison in Warren if they were judged too dangerous to stay. It revived a 2013 proposal the Legislature had not adopted. The administration pointed to Riverview's staffing and certification troubles, which had cost the hospital about $20 million in federal reimbursement.
Opponents included NAMI Maine, the ACLU of Maine and several Democratic lawmakers, who argued that people ordered into hospital care by a court should not be housed with prisoners and that the change could violate patients' constitutional rights.
The debate set up a question Maine kept returning to for years: where defendants who cannot stand trial should be held when the forensic hospital cannot safely manage them.
Source: LePage renews push to house 'forensic' patients in Maine State Prison unit — Portland Press Herald, by Kevin Miller
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