Public frustrations about organized retail theft and drug crimes galvanized California voters to overwhelmingly go Proposition 36 in November. However the measure could invite one other consequence, writes CalMatters felony justice reporter Nigel Duara: Extra deaths in California jails.
Championed by legislation enforcement teams, Republican legislators and a few Democrats, Prop. 36 will increase penalties for sure crimes and permits district attorneys to cost some misdemeanors as felonies.
It would additionally seemingly enhance populations in county jails, state prisons and personal detention facilitiesalthough consultants are break up on how a lot. An evaluation by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Workplace estimates that Prop. 36 would enhance the county jail inhabitants of 250,000 by “a few thousand.” However an evaluation by Californians for Security and Justice, which opposed Prop. 36, estimates it will add greater than 130,000 individuals in jail every year.
This has advocates, lecturers and households of people that died in jail apprehensive: Over the past 10 years, the variety of individuals dying in jails has elevatedalthough California has been locking up fewer individuals. Jails in Tulare, San Diego and Riverside counties have a number of the highest jail dying charges within the state.
An increase in overdoses is partly the rationale why deaths are rising, in addition to suicide and different “natural causes.” Jails are accountable for inmates’ well being care, however with extra individuals behind bars — together with these with complicated psychological well being wants — the amenities might develop into extra strained, says Yusef Miller, who leads a bunch of San Diego households whose family died in jails.
- Miller: “We’ve been claiming that Prop. 36 is going to increase the jail population, of course, but they’re increasing it into an already failed and broken system where people’s lives are lost from neglect. If you put more pressure and more activity on this, it’s going to fail even more.”
However Don Barnes, Orange County’s sheriff and president of the California State Sheriffs’ Affiliation, argues that the rise of in-custody deaths isn’t essentially tied with points immediately “related to the jail.”
- Barnes: “Saying people died in jails is a little bit of a misnomer. People who are dying in our care, and I can’t say this any other way, they’re not dying because they’re in jail. They are dying from things that are life choices, narcotics issues, poor health, cancer, other things.”
Lately, the Board of State and Neighborhood Corrections started conducting extra unannounced jail inspections after receiving stress from the general public and state officers to enhance high quality of care. The brand new director overseeing in-custody dying critiques can be embarking on a listening tour in at the very least two cities. However when requested about Prop. 36, a spokesperson for the corrections board instructed CalMatters it has not carried out a “formal analysis for impact.”
Learn extra about Prop. 36’s potential affect on jail deaths in Nigel’s story.
