Members of the state Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday visited O'ahu Community Correctional Center to discuss how the prison is addressing the findings of a highly critical federal report on mental health services for prisoners there.

Sen. Clayton Hee, chairman of the committee, said prison staff appear to be aggressively tackling the problems, but added that top administrators talked about the "boilerplate excuses" of needing more funding and staffing.

The committee members' visit followed a recent Advertiser story that disclosed the findings of three psychiatrists who inspected the prison in late 2005 as part of a continuing U.S. Justice Department investigation into whether the civil rights of mentally ill OCCC inmates are being violated. The psychiatrists issued a scathing but unofficial report that detailed numerous deficiencies in the treatment of such inmates.

The federal agency has yet to issue its formal findings.

Officials with the Department of Public Safety, which runs the prison system, have said DPS already has made improvements in response to the federal report and is addressing other problems that will take more time and resources to fix.