California jail watchdogs won’t keep track of COVID-19 cases in lockups. Activists want answers
California’s jail watchdogs have no plans to collect and publish information about how many inmates and employees have been infected with the coronavirus, the state board overseeing county lockups said Thursday.
Despite already gathering data on jails, including about their population and conditions, officials with the California Board of State and Community Corrections deferred to the state’s health department to release such information. But the health department has not yet even provided details about outbreaks in other types of facilities, like nursing homes.
That means jails for the foreseeable future will remain a patchwork of black boxes for the public as the pandemic deepens. Meanwhile, California’s prison system publishes daily updates about people who test positive for coronavirus, what facility they are in and how many test results are pending.
California’s county jails and youth facilities normally house about 75,000 people on any given day, in a state of 40 million. To date, the public has only heard sporadic reports about jail inmates who have been sickened with COVID-19.
Without a comprehensive picture of the scope of potential outbreaks, the public won’t know if counties and the state are focusing enough attention and money on stopping the spread within jails.
“This is critical information for us,” said Brian Goldstein, director of policy and development with the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. “We believe that the capacity exists right now… In the end, the BSCC needs to recognize that concerns about capacity must be weighed against the fact that there are 75,000 Californians in county facilities right now that we must protect.”
Goldstein and a consortium of advocacy groups on Thursday sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom asking him to demand the community corrections board collect and publish the data.
Even though sheriffs who run the jails have ended in-person visits and restricted access to common areas, facilities in California and across the country have emerged as particularly dangerous places prone to outbreaks of COVID-19.
Hundreds of inmates have been infected by the coronavirus in New York City jails, including a man who died Sunday. Cook County’s jails in Chicago have experienced outbreaks in the past two weeks that are among the largest known hotspots in the country.
A member of the nursing staff in Los Angeles County’s jails died after testing positive for the new coronavirus. And two Riverside County sheriff’s deputies died last week after suspected COVID-19 complications, including one who worked in the jails.
Some information available
California’s community corrections board, which is separate from the state’s prison apparatus, already publishes monthly and quarterly data about jail populations. Its research and field staff remain in contact with local jail administrators. And next week they will begin collecting information about the number of people released from jails as sheriffs work to empty some cells amid COVID-19 concerns.
Linda Penner, the board’s chair, said this was an “unprecedented time” and that teams were being as responsive as possible helping. But, she said, collecting and publishing data about county jail disease outbreaks would not be a priority.
“We don’t want to sound like bureaucrats,” Penner said. “But we also have to be well aware of the magnitude of this across the state and the various other reporting requirements locals have. We try to balance that conundrum right now.”
Even before the pandemic, California’s jail oversight, data collection and reporting processes have been under extra scrutiny. Newsom earlier this year called for an overhauled inspection process after McClatchy and ProPublica revealed gaps in oversight and enforcement of jails standards. The board has been taking steps to improve the processes, though some of those efforts have taken a backseat to the pandemic.
Several people at Thursday’s meeting, which was held via Zoom, also asked that the community corrections board become a clearinghouse for jail-related complaints, concerns and other information during the pandemic.
Experts say jails have a greater risk of disease outbreaks because of the constant churn of new inmates and people being released from custody. Many people being booked have existing health conditions that could leave them especially susceptible to illness. And others who are being arrested might not show symptoms but could still transmit the new coronavirus to others.
Isolating someone who might be showing signs of illness or quarantining those who may have been exposed can be all-but-impossible, especially in older, dilapidated facilities.
“People out there are afraid, and rightfully so,” said Sue Burrell, policy director with the Pacific Juvenile Defender Center. “This agency needs to affirmatively step up.”
This story was originally published April 9, 2020 at 1:48 PM with the headline "California jail watchdogs won’t keep track of COVID-19 cases in lockups. Activists want answers."