Blog note: this article references a 2012 grand
jury report.
Riverside County has tentatively settled
litigation that challenged the quality of medical and mental health care for
inmates in the county’s five jails.
But how much it will cost taxpayers to improve
that care is unknown, although the expense is likely to add millions of dollars
a year to an already-squeezed county budget.
Officials announced the settlement Friday. The
county Board of Supervisors agreed to the terms Tuesday during a closed-session
meeting.
The jails are operated by the Sheriff’s
Department.
“We don’t know the exact effect because the
costs have not been determined,” Capt. David Teets said Friday. “We don’t have
a lot of information right now.”
The proposed settlement, which needs court
approval, ends litigation filed in 2013 by the Berkeley-based Prison Law Office
in conjunction with a San Francisco law firm.
The civil rights class-action lawsuit, filed
in federal court on behalf of four county jail inmates, sought a court order to
correct what plaintiffs described as inadequate health care for the county’s
roughly 3,900 inmates.
One inmate alleged he had to wait two months
to see a doctor. Another said delays led to scar tissue build-up that prevented
the safe removal of a temporary filter supplying blood to her heart.
A 2012 county grand jury report also criticized
jail health care. A lack of staffing hindered inmates’ access to legally entitled
mental health services, the jury found.
Prison Law Office has sued counties throughout
California seeking jail improvements. It was one of the firms that sued the
California prison system regarding crowded conditions.
In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a court
order that forced California to reduce its prison population by 33,000. That
led to realignment, which shifted responsibility for certain low-level,
nonviolent offenders from the state to counties.
Realignment sent inmates who previously would
have done time in state prison to county jails. Riverside County’s jails were
not designed to handle inmates with multiyear sentences, and the county was
already under a federal court order to ease crowding.
“The aging jail population and incidence of mental
illness in detention facilities have complicated efforts to provide services in
jails statewide,” the county’s news release read.
The county lost more than $200 million in
revenue due to the Great Recession of 2007-08, and that hurt detention health and
other programs, the news release read.
To comply with the crowding court order, the
county has released thousands of inmates early. A $330 million project will add
more than 1,200 beds to the Indio jail, and officials are seeking up to $80
million in state funding to renovate the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility
in Banning and add space for educational programs.
MORE STAFFING
Lawyers for the county sought to dismiss the
lawsuit, saying the inmates who complained about care did not take prescribed medicine
and failed to attend medical appointments while in custody. The proposed
settlement arose from mediation sessions between the parties, the county’s news
release read.
Settlement terms call for increased staffing,
telemedicine – the remote diagnosis and treatment of patients through
communications technology – and telepsychiatry to expand jail health care
services. Inmates will have an easier time requesting services, and inmates
with certain disabilities “will be appropriately accommodated,” according to
the news release.
Court-appointed
experts will monitor the county’s compliance with the settlement, which drew
praise from Supervisor Marion Ashley.
October 30, 2015
The
Press Enterprise
By
Jeff Horseman
No comments:
Post a Comment