TEHACHAPI MAY GET JAIL HOSPITAL; OFFICIALS SAY FACILITY NEEDED TO HOUSE SEXUAL PREDATORS.

Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer

The state prison at Tehachapi is being considered for the site of a new, 1,500-bed mental hospital that would house ``sexual predators'' who have served their prison terms but are considered likely to commit crimes again once they are released, state officials said Friday.

Tehachapi is one of five sites being considered by the state Department of Mental Health for the $200 million to $300 million hospital, a prisonlike facility of more than 1 million square feet that would employ 1,500 people and have an annual budget of $100 million.

The Tehachapi City Council plans to hold a public hearing Dec. 21 for a resolution to support the fact-finding work the state will be doing as it moves toward a site selection.

That hearing will be the first in what is expected to be a series of public meetings to judge the community's response.

``This isn't a decision that the City Council is going to make. It's going to be up to the public,'' said Jason Caudle, Tehachapi's city manager, adding that he doubted the public would be alarmed.

``We already have 6,000 loathsome individuals at the state prison now and I'm sure many of them are sexual predators.''

The hospital is needed, state officials said, because of a 1996 law that allows the state to commit violent sexual predators to state mental hospitals at the end of their prison terms.

The law covers convicted criminals who have sexually assaulted at least two victims and are diagnosed with a mental disorder that makes them likely to engage in sexually violent criminal behavior after they are released, documents show.

The Department of Mental Health's patient population is expected to grow from 4,000 to 5,500 over the next six years, overloading the department's four hospitals and one prison psychiatric treatment program.

``DMH (Department of Mental Health) hospitals are rapidly approaching capacity due to growth in the number of severely mentally ill patients requiring in-patient treatment and patients committed under California's new Sexual Violent Predator Law,'' according to a project fact sheet. ``A new, 1,500-bed state hospital will be needed by 2003 in order to keep pace with the ever-increasing DMH patient population.''

Other sites being considered for the hospital are Soledad, Coalinga, Porterville and San Bernardino County. The site requirements include being on or adjacent to a state prison.

State officials plan to select a site in 1999. Construction would begin in March 2001 and be completed by November 2003.

Designs for the hospital have not been completed, but security arrangements will include two 12-foot-high fences topped with barbed wire. Between the two fences would be a lethal electric fence.

Security would be the responsibility of the state Corrections Department.

Male sexual predators are being housed at Atascadero State Hospital and female sexual predators are being housed at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County.

Both hospitals are being expanded to accommodate more patients, but those expansions won't be enough to handle the anticipated growth, state officials said.