A new jail report supports what advocates have been saying for years: Hundreds of people in the Santa Barbara County jails have significant mental health issues and need treatment the jail doesn’t provide.
Criminal justice departments updated the county Board of Supervisors on jail population management plans this week.
There’s a growing number of programs available to divert people from jail custody or get them out of custody faster, when appropriate. Most of those target low-level offenders who have mental health and/or substance-use disorders.
About 60% of the 740 people in county jails have a mental health condition that needs some level of treatment, according to Tanja Heitman of the County Executive Office.
More than 13% — about 92 people — are seriously mentally ill and require specialty health care, she said.
With a shortage of local inpatient beds, people experiencing a mental health crisis can end up in jail.
Heitman said the county wants to do more for these people in jail, but also prioritize them for services and treatment in community-based programs.
When the civil Grand Jury investigated four in-custody deaths last year, it found that 24/7 mental health care is badly needed in the jails, and so is crisis intervention training for custody staff.
Communication failures between medical and custody jail staff contributed to the deaths, jurors found.
Sheriff Bill Brown told the supervisors on Tuesday that there are three behavioral health units in the jails. They’ll open more in February, and have a total 86 beds specifically for people with mental health issues.
Long-Term Jail Population Projections
The county plans to expand its Northern Branch Jail near Santa Maria, and have a smaller facility where the outdated Main Jail is now, based on assumptions that its inmate population will stay level or increase slightly in the next few decades.
The daily jail numbers are averaging 700 to 800 people, according to consultant Michael Wilson, who has been studying the population trends.
Policy changes — such as all of the county’s diversion programs — can have a big impact on those projections, he told the county in a 2022 report.
Alternative sentencing — having people serve their time on electronic monitoring instead of in custody — has already contributed to lower jail projections, Wilson said. That program has grown a lot since the Probation Department partnered with the Sheriff’s Office to do supervision.
He said the county’s crime rates are lower than the state, but the incarceration rate based on population is higher than the state average.
Santa Barbara County has high rates of recidivism, and because of that, “anything that can reduce recidivism can have a big impact on the jail population,” Wilson said. “Many people in jail have been there before.”
Brown told the supervisors that more in-jail treatment for substance-use disorders is “your No. 1 way to combat recidivism.”
“The vast majority of people who commit crimes are people who are addicted to some type of substance, whether it’s drugs or alcohol,” said Brown, a longtime supporter of in-jail treatment programs.
Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in jail has expanded during the past two years, but there is still a wait list of 86 people, he added.
Looking Forward
There are several new programs planned for 2024, including rapid mental health diversion and early representation, which aims to connect indigent defendants with public defenders sooner.
Studies from a pilot program in Santa Clara County show that defendants with attorney access within 48 hours were less likely to be convicted and spent less time in jail.
District Attorney John Savrnoch said there’s a philosophical shift in thinking about who is eligible for diversion programs and other interventions.
In the past, reviewing attorneys and other decision-makers had to justify referring a client to a community program. In the new mindset, they would have to justify denying participation in a program.
“It’s why not, instead of why,” Savrnoch said.
Diversion programs are not designed for everyone. Serious and violent crime defendants will stay in jail custody, he added.
After hearing the presentation and asking questions Tuesday, the supervisors complimented criminal justice department leaders for their work on these programs and approved the jail management report.
“I do feel like more than ever before we’re rowing in the same direction,” Supervisor Das Williams said. “That’s pretty cool.”
The board did not take any action on expanding or reducing jail facilities.
Last year, the supervisors supported a plan to add 256 beds to the Northern Branch Jail and reduce the Main Jail to 128 beds, for a total of 728 beds. That is a decrease from the current capacity of 1,095 beds.
The General Services Division will be presenting a plan for that another time, County Executive Officer Mona Miyasato said.
Community advocates from CLUE and the League of Women Voters thanked the supervisors for the progress, and urged them to demand data to see which programs are working.
“We understand that some of those people are never going to get out of jail,” Gail Osherenko said. “We’re just trying to get people who aren’t a danger to the community served in the community so we’re not spending money on a jail program that over decades has not made our community safer.”
Jail incarceration costs the county an estimated $322 per person per day.
