The DOJ report cited two cases where failures at intake led to the death of an inmate: Edwin Villalta, a former Marine suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, died by suicide in 2017 18 days after entering the jail and after a doctor found he was not suicidal, and Christian Madrigal, who received no mental health screening despite his family calling police to have him hospitalized during a psychiatric emergency. While new inmates are medically screened at intake, they are not routinely screened for mental health issues. The new procedures are designed to help place people in appropriate treatment and coordinate better with other county agencies. ![]() Some of the biggest changes the sheriff’s office will have to make, if the settlement is approved, involve how people are booked into the jail and what happens when they are released. The sheriff’s office must remake its intake and discharge procedures A similar lawsuit alleging that Sacramento County jails were mistreating prisoners with mental health issues and abusing the use of solitary confinement was settled in 2019, resulting in a consent decree requiring numerous reforms. A similar agreement requiring reforms of the Oakland Police Department that was supposed to be completed in five years has gone on for nearly two decades. The agreement will place the county under court supervision, called a consent decree, for up to six years, and potentially longer if the sheriff’s office is found out of compliance after that time. “Obviously the more efficiently we do that the better off for everybody because ultimately it is going to be costly to the taxpayers, and at the end of the day we want to make sure we’re providing the treatment and care to the people who need it.” The reforms “will take many years to finish,” Kelly said. “It’s been a good process, a difficult process, but it’s going to be of great benefit to the people in our custody,” Kelly said about some of the new policies, procedures, facilities, and programs that would be created under the proposed agreement. Ray Kelly, a department spokesperson, acknowledged that the settlement will require substantial changes to the jail’s operations. “As long as we’ve got a jail we’ve got to make sure that it’s actually able to take care of people in a constitutionally compliant way.”Īlameda County Sheriff’s Sgt. “There actually needs to be mental health care and treatment because there isn’t any and there hasn’t been for a long time,” Bornstein said. Jeffrey Bornstein, a partner at Rosen Bien Galvan & Grunfeld, the firm that brought the class action lawsuit against the sheriff in 2018, said that mental health care in Santa Rita Jail has been essentially nonexistent for years. The DOJ found that the problem was particularly acute in Alameda County, citing a lack of community resources and a much higher rate of involuntary psychiatric emergency holds than elsewhere in California. Throughout the country, jails and prisons have become the de facto largest provider of mental health care as people without adequate treatment suffer psychological breakdowns that can lead to criminal behavior. But the DOJ’s investigation faulted the county’s entire system of mental health care, and the proposed class action settlement only covers issues in the jail. Having such extensive reforms in place already will likely contribute to such a settlement. The DOJ will attempt to reach a separate settlement with the county before filing its own lawsuit. While the Department of Justice’s investigation of the county’s mental health care system is separate from the jail lawsuit, the DOJ has been monitoring negotiations in the case. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division in a report released in April that showed Alameda County’s system of mental health care violates the 8 th and 14 th Amendments to the Constitution and the Americans with Disabilities Act. If approved, the settlement could address many of the problems identified by the U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins, who is scheduled to hear the motion on Sept. The draft agreement still must be approved by U.S. ![]() Under the settlement, the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office will be required to revamp its policies and procedures, hire new staff at the jail, build a new “therapeutic housing unit,” and put new oversight structures in place. The terms of the 110-page proposed settlement were made public in court filings last week. Alameda County has agreed to a massive reform program that will remake how mental health care is provided in Santa Rita Jail in order to settle a class action lawsuit filed three years ago on behalf of jail detainees.
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