People are dying in Pima County’s jail. What’s the solution?

Pima County’s jail is overflowing. Officials say they need a new facility for people arrested while in a mental health crisis.

But that isn’t likely to happen soon. County officials on Tuesday called for additional consultants and working groups to assess the balance between alleviating the crowded jail by building a new facility and the goal of decreasing the jail’s population.

A January report released by the Pima County Adult Detention Center Blue Ribbon Commission, which assessed the need for a new jail, found the jail houses as many as 769 more people than it was originally built for. Much of that overcrowding was in the mental health unit, the report found.

“Jail facilities are more and more being used as a mental health care provider,” stated the report. “The Sheriff has stated numerous times that people with mental health issues should not be remanded to jail … The reality is that they continue to receive these inmates and restoration to competency services are provided in-house.”

According to the commission’s report, the medical provider at the Pima County Detention Center in 2023 averaged 393 mental health evaluations monthly. An average of 631 people were on “mental health medications” out of an average daily population of 1,799 inmates.

Records from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner showed 39 people died inside the jail or shortly after being freed from 2022 through September 2023.

Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos said last year his facility was in a “fullblown crisis” at a “life-threatening level” due to overcrowding and understaffing. The Blue Ribbon Commission found improvements and changes are needed, but the jail is not in “crisis mode,” county Administrator Jan Lesher said in a Feb. 13 memo.

Lesher this week suggested increased funding for the correctional health services contract that provides dental, medical and behavioral health services to the inmates. She said overcrowding is occurring in the detoxification, health care and mental health units.

Lesher also suggested gathering a new commission with criminal justice stakeholders to explore how to lower bed capacity in the jail. Advocates and subject experts have criticized the commission for not addressing the issue.

Commissioners said they were not tasked with addressing jail diversion or population reduction methods.

The recommendations brought to the county Board of Supervisors are based on the commission’s findings from the report. It gave several other recommendations, ranging from making building improvements to creating a dedicated source of funding for facility maintenance and capital improvements, among others.

The commission found the aging jail suffering from failures of major systems like the cast iron waste plumbing system and deferred maintenance, noting that many repairs were reactive instead of preventative.

“Addressing jail conditions is not simply about addressing the physical facility itself. A multifaceted strategy is needed to modernize the facility so we can encourage public safety in addition to rehabilitation, cost savings, and reintegration into the community,” Lesher said, reflecting the commission’s findings.

County officials split on a path forward

While most of the supervisors supported the county administrator’s recommendations, Supervisor Steve Christy criticized the need for more committees and studies.

“Now we’re going to be doing the proverbial kick the can down the road with more commissions, more studies, more time by community volunteers to come up with something that should have been addressed all along with the original commission,” Christy said.

Supervisor Matt Heinz reiterated the need to address underlying conditions causing the increase in jail population before addressing any other issues.

“We have too many people in the jail too, many Black and brown people in the jail specifically,” Heinz said, noting the need to address the overpopulation and systemic issues before addressing other jail issues.

Heinz said the county successfully decreased jail populations by 18% between 2013 and 2019 with a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He also noted the population decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic. He said with a reduced jail population, the issues illustrated by the Blue Ribbon Commission report become much more easily tackled.

Supervisor Adelita Grijalva said she supported including community groups in the discussions about the jail, as well as addressing systemic criminal justice issues. But Grijalva also said she needed more information before supporting an increased budget for correctional health services.

“I don’t want to automatically increase funding for correctional health services until I understand clearly how they are utilizing the funding they have already been allocated because 21% of our overall county budget is in the Sheriff’s Department, 41% if you include all of legal services.”

Lesher said staff would come back to the board to address the details of the recommendations.

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