Chicago-Read Mental Health Center (CRMHC) is a state-run inpatient JCAHO accredited psychiatric facility with between 150 and 200 beds located in the neighborhood of Dunning on the northwest side of the city of Chicago close to O'Hare International Airport in the state of Illinois. It has served the adult residents of Chicago under various names since the middle of the 19th century as a repository for the mentally ill and destitute and as an alternative to incarceration for mentally ill offenders. Its former names have included the Chicago State Hospital and the Charles F. Read Zone Center; in 1885 it was called The County Insane Asylum and Infirmary. Originally it was simply known as "Dunning."[1] though "Dunning" officially closed on June 30, 1912, and reopened the next day as Chicago State Hospital. Much later it later became the Chicago-Read Mental Health Center.
Read has faced a number of setbacks in its time. In 1901 it was found that nurses had starved to death two mental patients there;[2] in 1992 it was under investigation for civil rights violations[3] and in 1993 Read lost its accreditation altogether.[4] In 1998 the director of the facility was dismissed under what were described as deplorable conditions for patients.[5]