SACRAMENTO — State officials said Monday they want to move as many as 1,000 inmates into the nearly empty Coalinga State Hospital — and perhaps use a federal prison being built in Mendota — to accommodate California's swelling prison population.

The proposals are part of a multibillion-dollar plan designed to avert a prison crowding crisis.

An estimated 51,000 new beds will be needed in the next 15 years to accommodate a prison population that today numbers 171,527 — an all-time high, according to the administration of Gov. Schwarzenegger. With little room to spare, inmates are squeezed into gyms, day rooms and other unsuitable areas.

"I have 16,000 inmates today that are inappropriately housed," said James Tilton, acting secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Tilton on Monday previewed the administration's plan to address the crisis. Lawmakers will take up the proposals in August during a special session called by the governor.

The Coalinga proposal is part of a short-term strategy to find 16,200 beds by June 2009. The governor also wants to create space by sending 5,000 illegal immigrants to prisons in other states, as well as by converting 800 spaces for women into spaces for men.

Nicknamed "prison valley" by some for its high concentration of state and federal prisons, the San Joaquin Valley will play a large role in whatever plan emerges.

Look no further than the Coalinga hospital. The state-of-the-art, $388 million facility was designed to house 1,500 mentally ill patients, mostly high-risk sexual offenders sent there by civil courts.

But nine months after it opened, only 200 of the hospital's beds are filled. The vacancy has been blamed on a shortage of qualified doctors, nurses, social workers and other technicians.

The governor's plan would temporarily fill some of the empty space with inmates from minimum-security prisons.

Assembly Member Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, whose district includes the hospital, questioned the cost of such a proposal. She said extensive remodeling might be needed because the hospital is not equipped to house regular inmates.

"They can't just bus inmates in, no matter what [security] level they are," she said.

Inmate advocate Steve Fama said mental services might be disrupted by bringing in prisoners. Mental hospitals, he said, have a "therapeutic milieu."

"To use mental health beds for state prisoners is a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Fama, a staff attorney at the Prison Law Office in San Quentin.

Tilton, in an interview, said the state would bring to the hospital inmates similar to the patients already there — that is, those convicted of sex crimes — so that no design modifications are needed.

Instead of high-risk sex offenders, the state would assign lower-risk inmates, who would require fewer mental health services, he said.

The governor's plan includes several longer-term options, such as expanding existing prisons and building two new ones in unspecified locations at an estimated cost of $1.2 billion.

The plan focuses on reducing recidivism by building so-called re-entry facilities. The 500-bed "mini-prisons" would serve as a place inmates can get job advice, counseling and other services just before release. The plan envisions building the facilities in 10 cities or counties willing to collaborate with the state.

Mentioned briefly is another proposal: cost sharing with the federal government on the federal prison being built in Mendota. In exchange for some financial help from California, the federal government might be willing to take some state prisoners, the proposal suggests.

The 1,280-bed prison is only about half-built. Officials have estimated $87 million is needed to complete the 960-acre facility. But the money has been hard to find.

Rep. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, who has pushed for funding, said the idea of a state-federal partnership has merit.

"This might be a way to assist not only the state's overcrowding conditions, but also the federal overcrowding conditions," he said.

But even if the prison is completed, there might not be enough people to staff it, particularly to provide health care, said Fama, the prisoner advocate.

"The Fresno/Bakersfield area is already completely overburdened," he said. "There's not enough doctors. There's not enough mental health professionals. And there's not enough nurses."

With a lack of staff, prisoners have to rely on local hospitals, he said.

"Even prisoners with urgent conditions have to wait an inordinately long time to see doctors."

The reporter can be reached at eschultz@fresnobee.com or(916) 326-5541.