Responding to allegations of inhumane conditions in county jails, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department is ramping up staffing to increase oversight of prisoners and health services.
Sheriff’s spokeswoman Jodi Miller said five new sergeants and 10 correctional nurses will be hired at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga, where most of the alleged inmate abuse and medical neglect is said to have occurred.
The moves come in response to a letter from the Prison Law Office, a 35-year-old nonprofit that fights for the Constitutional rights of the incarcerated. The Prison Law Office launched an investigation last year into inmate conditions at the jails after fielding numerous complaints from inmates, mainly from West Valley, who alleged they were routinely brutalized by deputies and failed to receive proper medical and mental health treatment. Disabled inmates also alleged the jails did not have the proper facilities to accommodate their special needs.
“The Sheriff’s Office and the county take these allegations seriously. That is why we have undertaken to discuss these matters with the (Prison Law Office) and are working cooperatively with them to address the issues they have raised,” Miller said. She said the changes at the jails are also to address prison realignment.
The county has also allocated $3 million in its 2015-2016 fiscal year budget to increase mental health care services at all four county jails – West Valley, the Central Detention Center in San Bernardino, the High Desert Detention Center in Adelanto, and the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore, Miller said, adding that the jails have already undergone millions of dollars in renovations to make them compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Prison Law Office attorneys corresponded with more than 700 inmates and reviewed the medical records of more than 250 inmates during the investigation, concluding there was an “apparent culture of violence” in the jails, especially at West Valley, where deputies engaged in a pattern of excessive force to “beat, tase [sic], and restrain prisoners.”
Inmates described specific instances of excessive force by deputies that resulted in broken bones, dislocated joints, bruising, swelling and hemorrhaging, according to an eight-page letter addressed to Sheriff John McMahon from Prison Law Office Director Donald Specter, dated Aug. 14, 2014, which summarized the findings from the investigation.
The Prison Law Office also concluded there were “serious inadequacies with mental, medical and dental care” at the jails, that prisoners with disabilities were discriminated against and not provided reasonable accommodations, and that the jails do not properly classify inmates who face potential harm from other inmates, such as gang dropouts, who should be isolated from the jail’s general population.
Inmate abuse
The Prison Law Office’s findings are in sharp contrast to Sheriff John McMahon’s characterization of conditions at West Valley after the FBI announced last year that it was investigating allegations of misconduct at West Valley. McMahon said at the time that it was an isolated situation confined to a few deputies in one particular unit at the West Valley Detention Center. He subsequently hosted a tour of West Valley, where he described the medical facilities and the treatment inmates were receiving as first rate.
McMahon could not be reached for comment for this story. He was “extremely busy” and unavailable for comment this week, Miller said Tuesday. She noted that the allegations by the Prison Law Office are just that – allegations – and have not been “tested or proven in a court of law or before a jury.”
An internal investigation into allegations of inmate abuse last March resulted in the removal of three rookie deputies and the suspensions of several other deputies.
It also spurred a spate of federal lawsuits, five to date, alleging civil rights violations against inmates.
In February, a federal grand jury was convened to hear testimony and review evidence in the case. The status of the grand jury inquiry is pending.
Specter said that of all the county jails the Prison Law Office has investigated, San Bernardino County’s stand out in terms of the number of inmate complaints alleging excessive use of force by deputies.
“The most striking thing about the conditions in the San Bernardino County jail is the number of serious complaints we received about the use of excessive force,” Specter said Monday in an e-mail. “I can’t give you a number from other counties, but no other jail has been close to the frequency of the complaints in San Bernardino.”
Specter’s letter to McMahon was disclosed in a June 23 staff report to the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, who during their regularly scheduled meeting that day approved an additional $250,000 for legal representation in the county’s ongoing negotiations with the Prison Law Office.
The county retained the San Francisco-based law firm Futterman Dupree Dodd Croley Maier LLP in January to represent them in its negotiations with the Prison Law Office. To date, the law firm has billed the county more than $74,000.
“Counsel is needed because, regardless of how well the county is actually doing, there is potential for litigation,” county spokesman David Wert said in an e-mail. “The firm retained by the county gives the taxpayers the best chance of avoiding costly litigation because the firm has experience dealing with the PLO (Prison Law Office), the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the standards for the medical, dental and mental health care of inmates.”
San Bernardino County is not the only public agency the Prison Law Office has taken to task over inmate civil rights. In March 2013, the nonprofit filed a federal lawsuit against Riverside County alleging the inhumane treatment of inmates who were denied access to timely and proper medical treatment. In September 2014, the lawsuit was elevated to class action status in U.S. District Court in Riverside, according to published news reports.
In 2011, the Prison Law Office, according to its website, filed a class action lawsuit seeking to remedy cruel and unusual conditions in the Fresno County Jail.
Both of the class action lawsuits occurred after prison realignment took effect in California in October 2011.
In the course of the Prison Law Office investigation in San Bernardino County, dozens of inmates described incidents at county jails in which groups of deputies responded to minor provocations by punching, kicking, striking inmates with weapons, and pushing prisoners into walls or onto floors. The incidents often occurred in areas of the jail where there are no security cameras. Inmates also described instances where deputies stunned them with their Taser guns with little or no provocation, often at close range and in sensitive areas of the body, including the testicles, according to the Prison Law Office letter to McMahon.
Specter noted in his letter that the Department of Justice and San Bernardino County Grand Jury previously identified inadequate policies and procedures that contribute to the culture of violence in county jails.
Health services
Inmates in need of mental health services in San Bernardino County jails find those services sorely lacking. Their treatment usually consists solely of being administered medication, but some inmates are even denied that. One inmate with an anxiety disorder was denied a potent anti-anxiety medication and he subsequently suffered a seizure and head injury. Even then, he was still denied his medication, and another month passed before he was seen by a psychiatrist, according to the Prison Law Office.
Another prisoner was prescribed a cocktail of three psychotropic medications at high dosages, without a proper psychiatric evaluation, which caused him to become dazed, bump into things and fall and hit his head. He later attempted suicide by jumping off the second tier of his unit. But even then, he was still not promptly evaluated for a change to his medication regimen, according to the Prison Law Office.
“The risk of harm to all prisoners created by this system must be addressed,” Specter said in his letter.
As to inmate dental care, a de facto policy exists in which inmates suffering tooth pain have no choice but to have their teeth pulled instead of less invasive procedures, even if the dental procedure is something as routine as filling a cavity.
Inmates with disabilities are also underserved at the jails due to the lack of proper facilities, a possible violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. One inmate with an above-the-knee amputation had to jump over a step, using his one leg, to get into the shower. He fell multiple times while trying, according to the Prison Law Office.
Inmates at risk of being assaulted by other inmates, such as gang dropouts, are often placed in the jail’s general population, and jail staff are not properly classifying inmates to help protect them from such dangers, the Prison Law Office found.
“Prisoners regularly report that deputies laugh at or ignore them when informed by the inmate they are in danger of being attacked by other inmates, and are told by the deputies they have no choice but to “get along,” and in some cases deputies even encourage inmates to fight,” Specter said in his letter.
Inmates who are potentially psychotic and unstable are also housed in the jail’s general population, according to the Prison Law Office.
On May 22 – more than nine months after McMahon received the letter from the Prison Law Office – 19-year-old Rashad Davis, a West Valley Detention Center inmate charged with petty theft and armed robbery and whose family said was developmentally disabled, was allegedly beaten to death by his cell mate, 22-year-old Jeremiah Bell. Bell was in custody for severely beating 54-year-old Rialto resident Armando Barron with a baseball bat. Barron was left paralyzed and comatose and died four days later.
Bell has been charged with murder in Barron’s death, and he now faces another murder charge in the Davis killing. The Davis case is under review by the San Bernardino District Attorney’s Office, office spokesman Christopher Lee said.
At the time Davis was killed, Bell was in the process of undergoing a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation, and was subsequently deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial in that case.
Negotiations between the county and the Prison Law Office continue. Specter said the negotiations have been “productive and cooperative,” and he hopes it stays that way.
“I should say this has been one of the most constructive and productive relationships with a government that we’ve had in that they recognized right away that it would be better to resolve these problems through negotiation rather than litigation, and so far they have been very responsive to our concerns, and we hope that continues,” Specter said.
County Supervisor Josie Gonzales said some complaints are likely due to overcrowding related to prison realignment.
A great deal of inmates who were formerly used to getting the services and amenities they needed are now not getting them in the county jail system, she said, noting that counties are still trying to obtain the funding and staffing to provide the services and protection both inmates and deputies need.
“This is a whole new arena when it comes to incarcerating state prisoners,” she said.
