Windfall to boost Dublin jail staffing
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $318 million windfall to boost staffing at the embattled Santa Rita Jail over the next three years, in a plan that will fund more than 450 new positions at the sheriff ’s office and the jail’s behavioral health team.
The 32 vote came after a panel of independent experts deemed the jail and its mentalhealth services severely understaffed — a determination that was made as part of a classaction lawsuit against the jail.
The decision to bankroll new employees came despite fierce opposition from social justice advocates and some health care professionals, dozens of whom voiced their concerns prior
to the vote in a Tuesday afternoon teleconference. Many of the callers argued that the funding would be more efficiently spent on communitybased services, and programs that would keep mentally ill people out of jail in the first place.
Supervisors Keith Carson and Wilma Chan voted against the funding, with Chan arguing that the county was already facing a budget crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“It would be nice if it were sitting there and we had that choice to spend it on something else,” Chan said. “It’s not there; it doesn’t exist.”
Supervisor President Richard Valle, who provided the tiebreaking yay vote, cited a summary statement from Sabot Consulting — the group that conducted the staffing study — as grounds for his decision.
“If additional staffing and resources are not provided to the Sheriff ’s Department, Detention and Correction Division, there is little hope of them curing the deficiencies identified in this report,” Valle read. “And there will continue to be a significant risk of harm to the staff and inmates at the Santa Rita Jail facility.”
Valle said he would only support the measure if it included a plan to “reduce and decrease mental health population within the jails.”
The funding will be rolled out over the next three years, and pay for an additional 349 custody staffers and 107 additional behavioral health employees. Of the annual $106 million, $84 million is earmarked for jail staffing and additional costs related to the lawsuit, and $22 million is for
Behavioral Health Care Services, which provides mental health services at the jail.
The staffing analyses stemmed from a classaction lawsuit that alleges the Dublin facility overuses isolation housing, lacks adequate mental health services and excludes people with mental illness from jail programming. The experts were chosen by both plaintiffs’ and defense attorneys.
Kara Janssen, an attorney who represents the inmates, said plaintiffs supported the staffing increases, but had no say on the proposed salaries or their impact on county budget. She noted that there were 10 incustody deaths at Santa Rita Jail in 2019 alone — many of them suicides — and at least six suicide attempts there in 2020.
“There have been far too many deaths, and without sufficient staff there to monitor conditions and mental health services, those deaths will continue,” Janssen said.
At a Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday afternoon, Undersheriff Richard T. Lucia said the makeup of people housed at the jail shifted over the past several years, and there were now more violent and mentally ill inmates.
“They’re a difficult population to manage with a small number of deputies and health care professionals,” he said.
More than two dozen public commenters called into the teleconference to voice their opposition to the measure. Not a single caller supported it.
A caller named Kimberly, who said her son is currently in Santa Rita after vandalizing a car, urged the supervisors to vote no “because you cannot provide mental health treatment in the jail.”
“We already have a system in place that can provide the help and services… (rather than) criminalize him and lock him up,” she said.
Jose Bernal, organizing manager at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, said at least 65 different organizations had written to oppose the budget measure.
After the vote, Bernal noted that the decision came during the worst public health crisis of a lifetime, and as unemployment rates hit Great Depression levels.
“It says a lot about a county that chooses not to invest in those communities and instead throw $318 million of our hardearned tax dollars into a halfempty jail,” he said. “If anything, now is the time to reaffirm a commitment to behavioral health in our communities.”
In a joint report filed last month in federal court, the experts wrote that the staffing gaps had a negative impact on the safety and wellbeing of those incarcerated.
“Staff shortages impair safety checks, outofcell time and access to programs,” the filing states.
As of early April, Santa Rita was down 155 positions —126 of them sworn and 29 civilian, according to a staffing analysis produced by Sabot Consulting, one of the expert firms hired to review the jail.