The Justice Department notified Gov. Linda Lingle in a letter dated June 16 that it has launched an investigation into the "provision of mental health services to inmates and detainees," according to the letter. The investigation could lead to a federal lawsuit under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act, known as CRIPA.

The latest federal scrutiny of a state facility was revealed less than a week after Justice Department investigators issued a blistering report on conditions at the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility in Kailua. The report said the youth facility lacks safeguards to protect the juveniles from violence and from trying to harm themselves and committing suicide.

It also comes less than a month after a highly critical report by a federal magistrate on the state's efforts to develop a community mental health system. That report said the state Department of Health has failed to properly address conditions that led to the suicides and deaths of 16 mentally ill Hawai'i residents earlier this year. The report arose from a federal investigation into conditions at the Hawai'i State Hospital launched in 1991.

In both of those cases, the federal action was pursued under CRIPA.

The announcement of the latest probe "was a surprise," said Nolan Espinda, warden at OCCC. "I'm confident that although no operation is perfect we're providing the necessary care required."

Espinda said he did not know what prompted the probe.

However, the Justice Department lawyer conducting the inquiry, Verlin Deerinwater, made a two-hour visit to the jail in July and spent most of his time in the areas "where we house our mental health inmates," Espinda said.

Deerinwater will return to Hawai'i with three psychiatrists in October to perform the formal inquiry at the facility. Deerinwater did not return a message left yesterday at his office in Washington, D.C.

"It is not an investigation of any wrongdoing," Lingle said. "It is just to assess the quality of the mental health services."

She said she didn't believe the probe was indicative of a larger problem with state correctional facilities, although she acknowledged, "I don't think any of the facilities in the state system as a whole would be among the models (for an ideal facility) you would want. Everyone would concede there is no model in the state system."

Asked how inmates with mental illnesses are housed at the jail, Espinda said OCCC separates male inmates requiring mental healthcare from the general population but does not do the same for women.

Of the 1,121 inmates at OCCC, 119 require mental health services, Espinda said. The men requiring care are divided into two modules, one housing 60 inmates, the other 35.

The 24 women requiring mental healthcare are housed in the female general population, which numbers 120. Espinda said a module to house the 24 women will be open by the end of the month.

The investigation is in its preliminary stages and no findings have been reported to the state. It is not criminal in nature but instead is aimed at finding whether the constitutional rights of inmates are being violated.

Enacted by Congress in 1980, CRIPA addresses the rights of individuals who are housed in government-run facilities. Under law, the Justice Department may investigate if there is reason to believe that a state or a state agency is engaged in a pattern or practice of depriving these individuals of their constitutional rights.

Paul Aucoin, an Ohio-based attorney who is helping the state resolve a CRIPA investigation of the Hawai'i State Hospital in 1991, has been retained to guide the state through the OCCC probe.

"I'm optimistic we'll be able to work something out," he said yesterday by telephone from his office in Columbus.

The investigation is not the first time inmate care has been questioned at OCCC.

In 1984, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class-action lawsuit against the state on behalf of men and women imprisoned at OCCC and the Women's Community Correctional Center in Kailua.

The lawsuit claimed the two prisons were crowded, lacked medical care for inmates, had little staff training, were unsafe and unsanitary, and had a host of other substantial problems.

In June 1985, the day before the ACLU lawsuit was to go to trial, the state conceded there were major problems at the two prisons and signed an agreement to fix them.

The agreement, known as the "Spear Consent Decree" in reference to inmate Agnes Spear, on whose behalf the original suit was filed, led to changes and improvements that were monitored by a team of nationally recognized experts.

The situation at the women's prison improved to the point that the case against it was dismissed in 1998.

And in March 1999, ACLU representatives agreed with state officials that all consent decree requirements had been sufficiently met at OCCC.