August
3, 2014
San
Francisco BayView
By
N.H. Putnam and Sin Barras
Santa Cruz County is seen by many as a model
for enlightened jail and prison policies. But last month the Santa Cruz County
Grand Jury released a report on the unusual number of deaths in the county jail
in 2012 and 2013 titled “Five Deaths in Santa
Cruz: An Investigation of In-Custody Deaths.”
The Grand Jury found that a lack of
after-hours mental health evaluations and failures to follow procedures on the
part of jail staff likely contributed to the deaths. The deaths and the report
have county residents questioning whether jail is the appropriate solution for
drug addiction and mental health problems.
In the mid-1990s, Santa Cruz County was a
model site for the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative, a program that
is now recognized as a nationwide standard for reducing incarceration of
juveniles. In response to a 2004 Santa Cruz Grand Jury report that found
crowded and unsafe conditions in the county jail, Santa Cruz expanded several programs
designed to provide alternatives to incarceration. These programs have been
credited with allowing the county to reduce incarceration rates to
significantly below the statewide average.
In the first years after California prison
“realignment” legislation (AB 109) in 2011 started shifting state prison
populations to county jails, Santa Cruz was one of the counties credited by
watchdog groups for presenting realignment plans that relied less on building
more jails than on increasing community programs. This year, however, Santa
Cruz is one of 48 California counties seeking budgetary approval for more jail
construction. Given its history of progressive reforms, many in
Santa Cruz were shocked by a cluster of deaths in the county jail and have
demanded to know what they mean.
In less than 11 months from August 2012 to
July 2013, five people died in the Santa Cruz County Jail. Christy Sanders, 27,
died after her lungs collapsed on Aug. 25, 2012. On Oct. 6, Richard Prichard
died at the age of 59 of a heart attack. Brant Monnett was 47 when he died of a
drug overdose on Nov. 20. Bradley Dreher, 47, and Amanda Sloan, 30, each
committed suicide by hanging, Dreher on Jan. 13, 2013 and Sloan on July 17,
2013.
Some had been in custody only for hours,
while others had been in for weeks or months. Based on California and
nationwide averages, this was more than five times the expected number of deaths
for a jail the size of Santa Cruz’s.
Given its history
of progressive reforms, many in Santa Cruz were shocked by a cluster of deaths
in the county jail and have demanded to know what they mean.
Christy Sanders had been in jail for nearly
two weeks for violating parole. According to the Grand Jury’s report, in the
week before her death she suffered a seizure, had difficulty breathing and was
denied multiple requests to be taken to the hospital.
Brant Monnett was arrested for violating his
parole by being in possession of a needle and trying to run from police. He
told jail staff that he would be withdrawing from methadone, which lasts much
longer in the blood than heroin, and was showing symptoms of overdose the
morning after his arrest. The Grand Jury found that he should have been
transferred to the hospital or placed in a special observation cell, but was
not.
Richard Prichard had been arrested for DUI
with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, but he wasn’t placed in a
“sobering cell.” The Grand Jury report speculates that officers at the booking
desk might not have placed him in one because the required checks every 15
minutes would have disrupted their routines on a busy night.
Brad Dreher was arrested on a Friday for
making a threat of violence after unsuccessfully trying to get prescriptions
for Xanax and Valium from a medical clinic. He told jail staff that he suffered
from mental health issues and was without his normal medications. He was
referred to the Crisis Intervention Team (CIT), a division of the County Health
Services Agency assigned to the jail to provide mental health evaluations and
services. Because the CIT is not available on nights and weekends, he was not
evaluated before his death on Sunday.
Amanda Sloan had been in custody for over
eight months after being shot in the leg by police during a confrontation in
which she allegedly fired gunshots from inside her house before coming outside
and aiming a gun at herself. According to press reports, her three children had
been separated from each other and placed in foster care, and days before she
committed suicide she was informed by a county social worker that she would
lose custody of them permanently.
The for-profit California Forensic Medical
Group (CFMG) took over the provision of medical care to county jail inmates on
Sept. 17, 2012. As in many cases around the state, county supervisors voted to
outsource medical care to save money.
CFMG is a privately-held corporation based in
Monterey that got its start providing medical care to inmates in the Monterey
County Jail in 1984 and has since expanded to win contracts in 65 facilities in
27 California counties. The company is currently defending against a number of
lawsuits, including over the deaths of two inmates in January of this year in
the Monterey County Jail.
Alarmed by the four deaths in the jail
between August and January, local Santa Cruz group Sin Barras organized a
demonstration to call attention to the issue on April 6, 2013. The Santa Cruz
Sentinel covered the story “Report blasts Main
Jail over inmate deaths: Five deaths over 11 months spark reform calls.”
The Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury is a
group of 19 private citizens selected to serve for one or two years by the
supervising judge of the county’s Superior Court. The Grand Jury has the power
to initiate investigations into the workings of all city and county governments
and to publish its findings. After the demonstration organized by Sin Barras,
the Grand Jury conducted an investigation into the deaths in the jail.
While the number of deaths was extremely
unusual for a jail of its size, the Grand Jury did not find an unusual level of
incompetence or cruelty at the jail. If something out of the ordinary was wrong
with how the jail was being run, it has been covered up successfully, at least
so far.
Alarmed by the four
deaths in the jail between August and January, local Santa Cruz group Sin
Barras organized a demonstration to call attention to the issue on April 6,
2013.
It seems just as likely that these deaths,
and the public attention they attracted, are an example of a series of sad
coincidences briefly bumping business-as-usual in the Prison Industrial Complex
across the line into newsworthiness. The real culprits being the lack of health
care, mental health care and help for drug addicts outside the law enforcement
system.
N.H. Putnam is a member of Sin Barras. Sin Barras, without
(prison) bars in Spanish, is a community-based group out of Santa Cruz that
works to build coalitions to eradicate the prison industrial complex. Sin
Barras is a member organization of Californians United for a Responsible Budget
(CURB). N.H. Putnam and Sin Barras can be reached at sinbarras@gmail.com
or P.O. Box 8443, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-8443.
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