Atascadero State Hospital, formally known as California Department of State Hospitals- Atascadero (DSHA), is located on the Central Coast of California, in San Luis Obispo County, halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. DSHA is an all-male, maximum-security facility, forensic institution that houses mentally ill convicts who have been committed to psychiatric facilities by California's courts. Located on a 700+ acre grounds in the city of Atascadero, California, it is the largest employer in that town. DSHA is not a general purpose public hospital, and the only patients admitted are those that are referred to the hospital by the Superior Court, Board of Prison Terms, or the Department of Corrections.
History
Atascadero State Hospital (ASH) opened in 1954, as a state-run, self-contained public sector forensic psychiatric facility. It is enclosed within a security perimeter, and accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). Patients are referred to the hospital by the Superior Court, Board of Prison Terms, or the Department of Corrections.
According to a 1978 Federal study of sex offender treatment programs: "An informal history of [ASH], distributed in 1975, reports that Atascadero opened “with the philosophy that good therapy could be carried on in a security setting and that modern methods of psychiatric treatment, based on a therapeutic community' concept, would most likely succeed.“ The problems of 'therapy vs. security' and 'prison vs. hospital' immediately developed and hindered successful treatment. The belief that criminals should be punished for their crime and not 'babied' haunted the hospital program. For several years beginning in 1959, a series of unfortunate and tragic accidents occurred at the hospital. A number of escapes and violent incidents in addition to widespread community concern led to a special investigation of the hospital's problems which ultimately resulted in a revamping of its organization, administration, and treatment programs” beginning in 1961. The 1960's were also a troubled decade for Atascadero, plagued by internal dissension, staff rebellions, and occasional scandal."
As early as the 1970s, ASH was referred to as a "Dachau for Queers." The term appeared in a March 16, 1972 L.A. Free Press article, with an Editor's Note stating: "The following story is an edited version of Don Jackson’s article "Dachau For Queers" which originally appeared in The Gay Liberation Book by Ramparts Press." A 2009 California Law Review article commented, "One reason for this appellation was that inmates [sic] were subjected to experimental therapies - electrical and pharmacological shock treatments in addition to lobotomies - to "cure" them of their "sex perversion."" Recent appearances of this term include a 2011 PBS American Experiences documentary "Stonewall Uprising", which was rebroadcast in 2020, and a 2012 New Yorker article. In 1976 Michael Serber MD (then ASH Clinical Director) coauthored a paper commenting: "The history of treatment for the homosexual at this institution has mainly centered around inadequate and sometimes cruel attempts at conversion to heterosexuality or asexuality. There is an intermittent history of aversive conditioning. These aversive techniques had extended even to the use of succinylcholine and electroconvulsive shock treatment as punishment for homosexual offenders who had 'deviated' within the hospital. At the very minimum, homosexuals were frequently degraded by staff whose attitudes concerning homosexuality were punitive and judgmental. More homosexual patients than heterosexual had been defined as unamenable to treatment after a period of hospitalization and then were sent to prison via the courts under the ambiguous judicial system that determines the fate of sexual offenders in the state of California.” Through an NIMH "Hospital Improvement" grant (1971–75), Dr. Serber and his coauthor Claudia Keith MA led improvements in ASH's programs.