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DALLAS - Employee disciplinary records show abuse and neglect are systemic in mental hospitals in Texas, which has worked over the past year to revamp its juvenile prison system because of similar allegations, according to a report published Sunday.

Seventy-two workers have been fired in the past three years over allegations of abuse, while hundreds of others have been fired for other violations.

Those include sleeping on the job and overmedicating patients, according to personnel records obtained by The Dallas Morning News.

The violence against patients included choke holds, headlocks and threats against patients at the state's 10 psychiatric hospitals, the newspaper reported.

There are about 18,000 patients and about 7,400 employees in the state psychiatric hospital system.

Officials with the Department of State Health Services, the agency that runs the psychiatric hospitals, said they take all allegations of mistreatment seriously.

However, they said abuse and neglect are "absolutely not" pervasive - and that verified cases are actually dropping.

Psychiatric hospitals are stressful environments, said agency spokesman Doug McBride. He acknowledged there are times when employees "do not handle a situation appropriately."

State officials say the rules for reporting abuse and neglect are stringent and that confirmed cases of physical and sexual abuse are reported to police.

In the past year, Texas juvenile prisons, group homes for the disabled and state schools for people with mental disabilities came under fire for reports of widespread physical and sexual abuse.

The Texas Youth Commission has undergone a complete restructuring.

Like other systems for vulnerable Texans, the state psychiatric hospitals are chronically starved for cash, advocates of more state funding say, and services at the local level can't keep up.

Texas ranks 48th in the country in per capita funding for people with mental illness.