A recent Santa Barbara County Grand Jury report found that female inmates in Santa Barbara County jails have fewer work opportunities than male inmates and that inmates at the Main Jail have fewer educational opportunities than inmates at the Northern Branch Jail. 

Due to fewer female inmates, there are not enough female inmates to fill educational classes and work crews, leaving inmates with little to no opportunity, the report says.

In 2024, approximately 12% of inmates at the county Main Jail were women while roughly 11% of inmates at the Northern Branch Jail near Santa Maria were women. Across the two jails, there were 849 female inmates in 2024: 533 were only there for one day, 170 women spent two-three days in jail, and 67 women spent more than 10 days in jail. 

While interviewing female inmates at both facilities, one of the biggest challenges the Grand Jury learned about was a lack of work opportunities for women compared to male inmates. 

Inmates can join work crews and prepare meals in the kitchen, do the laundry, do maintenance, or clean the facility. For the male work crews, if an inmate is sick, a replacement can easily be found; however, there usually aren’t enough female inmates willing to work to fill a work crew, meaning the women who do want to work have fewer opportunities to do so, according to the report.

This leaves the women without a way to stay active and productive and without a way to pick up a skill they can use to find a job on the outside. 

“The loss of not being able to work is that they are not learning or practicing skills that they could use outside the jail to look for a job,” the report stated. “Many do not have a strong support system, and leaving the jail without a job skill or recent experience worried them. Without a family, a social group, or a system to keep them afloat, the women were anxious about being released.”

The Sheriff’s Office is working to address this issue by reconsidering the minimum number of women required for work crews. Additionally, custody management is looking into allowing fewer women to make a team for tasks such as cleaning, and also discussing how to incorporate women into work crews, according to the report. 

The smaller number of female inmates also impacts educational opportunities. 

At the Northern Branch Jail, there is a popular class in installing solar panels; however, female inmates couldn’t join because not enough female inmates signed up for the class to reach the minimum of 10 people to fill a class.

The Sheriff’s Office is discussing lowering the minimum requirement to eight people, according to the report. 

As of now there are no other job training classes available except for SERVSAFE, which trains inmates for a Safe Food Handling certificate. However, only male inmates can practice this skill in the jail kitchen duty, according to the report.

The Grand Jury recommended that the Sheriff’s Office provide work detail opportunities to female inmates at both of the county’s jails in crews that allow for a more flexible number of women.

There is also an educational disparity between the two jails. Allan Hancock College typically teaches three to four credit classes per semester while only two classes are offered by Santa Barbara City College on alternating semesters at the Main Jail. 

Because of this, the Grand Jury recommended that the Sheriff’s Office work with local colleges to expand current educational and vocational course offerings at the Main Jail. 

This isn’t the only disparity between the two jails. According to the report, female inmates in the Northern Branch Jail saw overall better conditions including a better dayroom, bigger showers, and larger and brighter units.

Women at the Northern Branch Jail also have their own Behavioral Health Unit with 16 single-bed cells next to the female general population unit. According to the report, there is no comparable Behavioral Health Unit for women at the Main Jail. 

While jail management tries to move women from the Main Jail to the Northern Branch Jail because of the better living conditions, the units fill up quickly and sometimes inmates have to be transferred back to the Main Jail. 

However, some women do not prefer the more comfortable units up north because a deputy is always in the unit with them, while at the Main Jail deputies walk down the halls at least once an hour for safety checks, which gives the women more time alone, according to the report.  

Inmates also shared their frustrations with the lack of food options. The jails got a new food vendor last fall who initially offered fresh fruit and vegetables. While women at the Northern Branch Jail “invented small pies” with the fruit, male inmates used the fruit to make alcohol, causing the vendor to remove the fruit completely. 

The situation has since been remedied, according to a report, but for a while inmates were only offered beans and rice. 

While women appreciated the access to mental health services, they shared that they have to put in requests and wait to see a specialty medical doctor. There is only one full-time doctor and only one dentist for inmates so requests usually take awhile to be answered, according to the report. 

Santa Barbara County’s new contract with Wellpath, the jail healthcare provider, adds more nurses and mental health aides to the jail, according to the report.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office will have 60 days from when the report was published to respond to the recommendations.