Families were notified days after a loved one’s death while in jail. An incarcerated person was given “puzzle books” as mental health treatment. Correctional officers smuggle in drugs as jail overdoses climb.
These are some of the jarring allegations made in a Feb. 7 letter to the state board that oversees jails and prisons alleging dangerous conditions inside Riverside County jails.
Eighteen people died in the jails in 2022 – the most in at least 15 years, stated the letter, which was written by the ACLU of Southern California and two community groups.
The letter alleges drug overdoses in jails are increasing — five of last year’s deaths were due to fentanyl overdoses — and incarcerated people are not getting the medical and mental health care they need.
“This body has never recognized the near constant loss of life in Riverside County jails in the last year,” Avalon Edwards, a policy associate with the Riverside-based nonprofit Starting Over, Inc, told the Board of State and Community Corrections at its meeting Thursday. Starting Over, Inc. is one of the letter’s signatories.
The BSCC must conduct “thorough unannounced facilities inspections and a review of … policies that are systematically endangering the lives of incarcerated people,” the letter said.
It said inspection teams must focus on a number of issues, including “how drugs are entering Riverside facilities” and whether jail staff “are held to the same level of scrutiny for bringing in contraband as visitors and incarcerated people.”
The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the jails, did not respond to a request for comment.
[H]e got access to fentanyl inside within six days.
— Kathy, the mother of a man who died in a…
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