Former clinicians, inmates describe 'filthy, inhumane conditions' at facilities
On Monday, a group of civil rights attorneys filed an emergency request in federal court, asking a judge to order the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department to make immediate changes to address serious lapses in care in its jails.
LaCroix said he, Moniger and Keavney all pushed the cell’s emergency call button multiple times, to no avail.“The next day, we were woken up by a detective who told me and Mr. Keavney that Mr. Moniger died,” LaCroix wrote.“It is like a Third World country in here,” LaCroix wrote. “Jail staff care absolutely zero about the welfare of incarcerated people.
The motion also asks Judge Anthony Battaglia to require the Sheriff’s Department to fix broken emergency call systems and surveillance cameras, overhaul the system that’s supposed to detect when drugs are brought into the jail, implement so-called “medication assisted treatment” for people addicted to opiates and ensure incarcerated people have access to the overdose-reversal drug naloxone.
“No one informed me about custody staff moving Mr. Marroquin back into housing where he had previously decompensated, and I was not consulted about whether it was clinically safe for him to be returned to Ad-Seg following his removal from psychiatric observation,” she wrote. Alonso attributed the current shortage of mental health clinicians to unbearable working conditions in San Diego County jails.
A Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman did not respond directly to the allegations in the new court filings, but said that the department “is committed to providing the best medical and mental health care for individuals in our custody.” The county’s Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board has, on multiple occasions, faulted the department for broken surveillance cameras, nonworking emergency call buttons and slow responses to medical crises.
“Without confidential clinical contacts, to assess people’s mental health needs and to provide treatment, the system cannot even begin to provide constitutionally adequate care,” he said.The new filings also argue the Sheriff’s Department has failed to enact policies and procedures to address the high rate of opiate overdoses, particularly fentanyl, in its jails.
“The Jail did not provide me with Narcotics Anonymous or other substance use education programs,” he said, echoing an issue raised in other depositions. “Instead, I had to rely on a sobriety book from outside the Jail and work on my own to try to stay clean and sober. It is not easy in an environment like the Jail, where opioids are easily available, and where I have not received adequate treatment for my addiction and mental health needs.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department currently offers MAT on a limited basis in the Las Colinas women’s jail. In the March 14 media release, Undersheriff Martinez said only that “the MAT program is expected to expand,” but did not specify when. Here are some of the declarations included in the filing from people who are either currently incarcerated in San Diego County jails or were recent inmates:
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