Five inmate deaths in the Santa Barbara County Jail prompted a series of Grand Jury reports investigating the deaths. Those reports were released earlier this year, and responses were heard by the county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. 

In the reports, the Grand Jury found that each person’s mental health or substance abuse issues were ignored or not communicated across different agencies, contributing to the deaths. The Grand Jury also found that the medical contractor for the jail, Wellpath, didn’t communicate its findings to custody staff. 

The Board of Supervisors is required to respond to the reports in writing to the presiding judge of the Superior Court. However, responses have to be focused on the legal response requirement that Tanja Heitman, assistant county executive officer, said is very limited. The board can respond only to the Grand Jury’s specific findings and recommendations. 

Heitman did say that county staff is aligned with the recommendations to improve medical and behavioral health care in the jails. 

Stan Roden, a member of the Grand Jury and an elected Santa Barbara County district attorney from 1975 to 1982, asked the board to hold a public workshop with people from the community and the Grand Jury to talk more about the investigation and ways to improve mental health and well-being in the jails.

Roden said that more than 60 people were interviewed during their investigation but that after the reports go through all the different channels they have to go through, all that’s left is a brief summary that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“Once the report is prepared, it has to go through a series of channels that strips it of effective persuasiveness because you can’t attribute the information you receive to one particular person,” Roden told the board on Tuesday. 

Gail Osherenko spoke for the League of Women Voters and Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice during public comment on Tuesday. She agreed with Roden’s idea to have a public roundtable and questioned why a sheriff-coroner was the coroner in an in-custody death. 

“It offends me with all the training I had on what is ethical to have a sheriff-coroner to make a decision on the cause of death when any of the people working under him were involved, and there were many people working under the sheriff involved,” Osherenko said. “If they don’t get 40 hours of crisis intervention training, we don’t have a prayer of not having any more deaths in the jail.” 

The crisis intervention training was one of the recommendations from the Grand Jury report but “will not be implemented because it is not warranted,” according to the staff presentation. The presentation stated that the current contract allows for Wellpath to be trained by the Sheriff’s Office and the Probation Department.

Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said he was not opposed to a group of people looking into the jail’s medical care in an advisory role. 

Sheriff Brown also told the board that he wanted the community to understand that they cannot prevent all deaths that happen in the jail.

“The reality is that correctional health care is part of community health care and mortality in the community is inevitable for each of us,” Brown said. “It’s going to occur inside institutions as well as outside institutions.”

Brown did give a nod in agreement that he would be part of a larger meeting to exchange ideas on how to improve the jail’s health care before Wellpath’s contract is up for renewal in March, a suggestion that the board approved with a 3-2 vote.

All of the 2022-23 Grand Jury reports can be read online here.