The Biden administration’s Department of Justice on Wednesday launched an investigation into “unnecessary institutionalization” at Michigan’s four psychiatric hospitals.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act protects people’s right to receive mental health services in the community, rather than remaining in hospitals when they are ready to go home,” Kristen Clark, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. “This investigation will assess whether Michigan is honoring the ADA’s promise that people with disabilities be served in the most integrated setting appropriate.”

Disability Rights Michigan, an advocacy group for people with disabilities, contends some residents in psychiatric hospitals run by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s Department of Health and Human Services have remained for more than 1,000 days.

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That’s because of “significant barriers to receiving services in the community, which cause people to remain in hospitals unnecessarily,” Simon Zagata, the group’s community and institutional rights director, said in a statement cited by The Detroit News.

“People needlessly sit in psychiatric hospitals, in large part because they cannot secure the necessary home and community-based services provided by Michigan’s Prepaid Inpatient Health Plans and community mental health organizations,” DRM litigation director Kiyle Williams said.

Michigan DHHS operates four psychiatric hospitals that serve adults: Caro Psychiatric Hospital, Center for Forensic Psychology in Saline, Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital, and Walter Reuther Psychiatric Hospital.

The DOJ issued notice of the investigation to Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel, and the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday. Whitmer has not addressed the investigation, while Nessel referred a request for comment from The News to DHHS.

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“The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is deeply committed to expanding access to quality behavioral health services and ensuring community-based and home-based supports are available for individuals when and where they need them, DHHS spokeswoman Lynn Sutfin wrote to the news site in a Thursday email.

“This administration has invested in building these community and home-based behavioral health services more than any previous administration,” she wrote. “The department continues to work with other state agencies, community partners and families to expand and improve access to an array of behavioral health care services and resources across Michigan.”

Regardless, some Lansing lawmakers believe DHHS can and should do more.

“The recent development that federal oversight is needed to protect patients seeking care at Michigan’s psychiatric hospitals is just the latest in an expanding series of troubling events that have raised serious red flags regarding MDHHS leadership and the agency’s ability to serve vulnerable residents seeking psychiatric care,” Sen. Michael Webber, R-Rochester Hills, said in a statement.

Webber, vice chair of the Senate Health Policy Committee, introduced Senate Bill 1048 in October to ban DHHS staff from serving on the state’s Recipient Rights Advisory Committee, and to add representatives from Disability Rights Michigan, Mental Health Association, and ARC Michigan as permanent standing members.

A companion bill, Senate Bill 1049, would require hospitals to give voluntary hospitalized psychiatric patients written notice of their rights, something that’s already required for involuntarily hospitalized patients.

The questions about “unnecessary institutionalization” follow an array of other issues at state psychiatric hospitals in recent years.

In December 2022, an unannounced active shooter drill at the Hawthorn Center, the state’s only psychiatric hospital for children, sparked panicked calls to unwitting police, who responded and created more panic, WDIV reports.

That debacle eventually led to a $13 million class action settlement and a lot of questions from lawmakers.

In a separate $50 million lawsuit filed in May, attorneys for a 15-year-old girl claim staff at Walther Reuther Psychiatric Hospital, which temporarily housed youth amid construction at Hawthorn, “encouraged, manipulated, and controlled the mind” of the girl, resulting in a brutal attack on a 10-year-old boy in October 2023, attorney Arnold Reed told WDIV.