County launches jail review following 4 deaths
After a series of in-custody deaths at the Milwaukee County Jail, the Board of Supervisors authorized a review Thursday into the facility’s policies, procedures and practices for suicide prevention, mental and physical health assessments, and training and staffing.
The review was approved 16-1, with Supervisor Anthony Staskunas voting against the resolution.
This comes after Milwaukee County Jail has had four in-custody deaths in the last 11 months with three occurring after Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball took over the top spot at the agency in January and also while she was serving as interim sheriff after former Sherriff Earnell Lucas’ departure in October 2022. There were at least five deaths during Lucas’s tenure, with Ball as his deputy sheriff, between 2018 and 2022.
“This asks the sheriff to provide us with basic information about their budget, about the conditions, about their policies and why things are going so very wrong — why we have an almost total lack of transparency and accountability for this department,” said Supervisor Ryan Clancy, who co-authored the resolution.
Supervisor Felesia Martin, who coauthored the resolution, also said the jail is “grossly understaffed,” which many feel has had an impact on the jail’s conditions and treatment of individuals housed there awaiting trial.
The sheriff’s office has been vocal about its ongoing staffing shortages, which have been in violation of a courtordered consent decree reached in 2001 after several people in the jail sued over dangerous conditions.
“When you are working depreciated capacity, unfortunately, these types of incidents will happen when a person is now working 20 hours and they’re not able to go home and get adequate rest,” Martin said. “I’m not making any excuses, by far, but we also want to give a clear and accurate picture of what is happening in our facilities.”
A little less than a year ago, 21-yearold Brieon Green died by suicide at the County Jail on June 26 four hours after his arrest at Bradford Beach. On Dec. 16, 20-year-old Cilivea Thyrion died by apparent suicide after swallowing a diaper while she was on suicide watch.
The following month 49-year-old Octaviano Juarez-Corro, whose cause of death had initially been reported as unknown and the Milwaukee County