Contra Costa jail complaints get attention of congressman
Mark DeSaulnier had to see it for himself. The congressman from Concord walked through the West County Detention Facility in Richmond after female detainees told The Chronicle that they were being locked in their rooms for 23 hours a day with red biodegradable bags substituting for a toilet.
On Tuesday, the day after his tour, he had more questions than answers — so many questions that he’s asking U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the Contra Costa County jail, which houses federal immigration detainees under a $6 million-a-year contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I don’t have high hopes, but it is a federal contract so I assume that there’s some liability there for Homeland Security,” DeSaulnier said.
I first learned about the allegations by the women in a phone call from one detainee, Dianny Patricia Menendez, a native of Honduras who had been jailed at the detention facility since May. She begged an immigration judge in October to be deported rather than endure the jail conditions, and weeks later she was deported.
Menendez told me about detainees being forced to urinate and defecate in red biodegradable bags that jail staff give them — because they’re locked into their toilet-less cells for hours on end. When I toured the jail on the
day she was deported last month, I met more female inmates who shared similar stories.
But officials with the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, which operates the jail, have repeatedly denied that inmates are locked up for such long periods with no access to the bathrooms. They’ve begun an internal investigation.
DeSaulnier, who was troubled by the women’s accounts in The Chronicle, requested the tour and was escorted through the facility’s classrooms and dormitories on Monday by Contra Costa County Sheriff David Livingston, Undersheriff Michael Casten and Assistant Sheriff Matthew Schuler.
“That’s one of the nicer ones physically,” DeSaulnier said of the jail.
I had the same thought. But, like DeSaulnier, I realize you can’t tell what’s really happening inside by observing inmates mopping floors, serving meals and sitting at computers in a classroom.
An independent investigation is what the public needs — and it’s what the congressman is calling for, both from Sessions and from state Attorney General Xavier Becerra. State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, has also called on Becerra to investigate the jail.
So far, no word from Becerra on whether he’s going to take action.
DeSaulnier also plans to call on John Roth, the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General, to probe the jail. ICE is a division of Homeland Security.
“I think it’s fine that they’re doing an internal audit, but I just think it’s the nature of things, you can’t expect a department to do a fully objective investigation of themselves,” DeSaulnier told me during an afternoon interview at his office in Richmond. “It’s not the sheriff ’s department any more than it is Caltrans or Richmond or us. You have to have a third party.”
When I inquired about the status of the internal investigation, Livingston said officials are conducting interviews with detainees and staff, as well as reviewing hundreds of hours of video surveillance.
“Congressman DeSaulnier toured our facility and was invited to view any area he wished to visit and speak to any detainee he liked,” Livingston said in the statement. “He can now publicly call for any additional investigation he wants.
“However, as the political rhetoric from some around this issue continues to boil, we remain undeterred in providing professional and diligent custody services for our county inmates and federal detainees. We are responsible for over 1,600 inmates every day, day in and day out, and the allegations of the few ICE female detainees are a fraction of this number. Their complaints are and will be fully investigated.”
DeSaulnier told me he didn’t speak to any female detainees.
But he did meet with six public and community interest groups at his office, including Prison Law Office, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity and Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement.
“After meeting with both sides, I think we need to make sure that there’s an independent investigation that finds out whether any of these accusations have merit,” DeSaulnier said. “The gist of today was I heard both sides, and I think I still have a lot of questions and we’re going to try and find out what the answers are.”
I asked DeSaulnier if Livingston addressed the gulf between what detainees and jail monitors have described and what the jailers have said of the conditions inside the jail.
“He thinks it was an isolated incident, and (Menendez) had perjured herself before and she had issues,” DeSaulnier said of Livingston.
And that’s what’s been bugging me: It’s not just one detainee speaking up, a fact that’s diminished by suggesting Menendez’s complaint is an isolated incident. Two people inside the jail told me they’ve had to use a bag. Another woman said her roommate defecated on herself. Several women, their attorneys and jail monitors have said there isn’t adequate access to health care.
What’s more, a letter signed by 27 female detainees detailing their conditions was sent to Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, or CIVIC, a San Francisco group that monitors jails where immigrants are detained. The letter told of detainees being kept locked up for hours and told to use bags in their cells when they need to go to the bathroom.
“We have documentation and testimonies from many of the people there demonstrating that this isn’t an isolated incident — that it is a systemic issue, that everyone there is experiencing and suffering,” said Rebecca Merton, CIVIC’s national visitation coordinator, who attended the meeting with DeSaulnier.
Merton praised DeSaulnier’s interest in the conditions inside the facility.
“He recognizes that it’s not going to be enough to just identify problems and promise to fix them,” she said. “We need to ensure that steps are actually taken to end the isolation and suffering of people inside the facility.” San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Email: otaylor@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr