Grand jury blasts mental health care in county jail; Sheriff calls report 'most factually inaccurate' he's seen

“Disturbing and stressful” physical conditions have worsened a growing mental health crisis at the Santa Cruz County Jail, where the prison system has mistreated inmates with mental illness and suicidal thoughts, according to an investigation released Tuesday by the Grand Santa Cruz County Civil Jury. .

The civil grand jury criticized the prison's health care provider, Wellpath, the nation's largest prison health care provider, for failing to fulfill its responsibilities – providing care for only 18 hours instead of 24 hours a day – due to apparent staff shortages and high staff turnover. The report also claims the prison inappropriately used solitary confinement cells as punishment when an inmate was experiencing a mental health crisis.

“The grand jury is deeply concerned about the mental health mistreatment provided to our inmate population,” the report concludes. “This extends to the treatment of prisoners living with or developing mental health problems, during their prison sentence and after their release. This ongoing concern is extensively detailed in this report. The treatments described, such as solitary confinement, are inflicted on people who are still presumed innocent.

This report immediately gave rise to an argument between the grand jury and Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart. The problem: the grand jury's inability to speak directly with inmates about prison conditions.

Jurors who make up the government's volunteer watchdog have not been able to speak with the inmates. The report claims the sheriff's office denied the grand jury's repeated requests to interview inmates during its investigation, a refusal it says is an apparent violation of state rules.

Instead, the jury relied on tours of the prison, interviews with corrections officials and state reports on prison operations.

Jurors requested interviews with inmates at the county's main jail during a hunger strike earlier this year, according to grand jury foreman Kim Horowitz.

“The sheriff’s response was it’s not safe,” Horowitz told Lookout on Tuesday. “We proposed to [do it virtually], but they closed us. Horowitz said the jury then requested an interview with an inmate at Rountree Rehabilitation and Recovery Center, a low-security facility in the county, but their request was denied.

Hart told Lookout, also Tuesday, that “I've been here a long time and this report was by far the most factually inaccurate report I've read from the civil grand jury.”

Despite state rules protecting a civilian grand jury's access to inmates for interviews, Hart called the request extraordinary and said the interaction with the grand jury represents a departure from past practice.

“Talking to the detainees would have enriched the investigation”

“The law is pretty clear: We can do this, we can question detainees,” Horowitz said. According to the report, Board of State and Community Corrections rules require prisons to provide a civilian grand jury access to inmates during investigations into conditions of confinement. “Talking to some inmates about their experiences and opinions… would have greatly improved the prison investigation,” the report said.

Horowitz said the grand jury was working with County Councilwoman Ann Jackson on a subpoena to force the sheriff's office to comply, but the jury's legal deadline to conclude its report was too tight. Reached by phone Tuesday, Jackson declined to comment, referring Lookout to county spokesman Jason Hoppin, who then referred us to Jackson. Just minutes after initially declining to comment, Jackson's secretary said she was no longer available. Jackson also did not respond to a follow-up email.

Just like in counties across the state, the Santa Cruz County civil grand jury meets each year with a new slate of 19 jurors to investigate local government throughout the county and its cities. Grand juries have a long discretion over what they investigate. However, they must produce at least two specific reports each year: an investigation into the operation and conditions of the county jail system, and a follow-up report on how the local government responded to the previous year's investigations.

Jim Hart: This is 'the most factually inaccurate civil grand jury report I have read'

Any government agency called in a grand jury investigation has 60 days to respond. Reached by phone Tuesday, Hart said “the politically correct thing to do would be to just say we'll take our 60 days and file a response.”

However, the sheriff sharply criticized the grand jury and rejected its claims.

“I've been here a long time and this report was by far the most factually inaccurate report I've read from the civil grand jury,” Hart said. “There’s definitely something going on there, whether it’s in terms of bias or, I don’t know.”

Hart said his office has always had a cordial relationship with the watchdog, but that has led to an informal process of interviews and information gathering. Typically, Hart said, his office will grant jurors access to whatever they are legally entitled to, whether it's documents, data or discussions with deputies.

Although he called the inmate's interview request strange, he said his office was still willing to comply.

“The civil grand jury asked to speak with the inmates, we said, OK, which inmates, and they said we don't know, just introduce us to an inmate,” Hart told Lookout. “It was a very unusual request. They did not want to specify who. So we said, just send us a subpoena who you want to talk to and when, but they never did.

“There is no such thing as asking us to simply produce a generic inmate. We have never had this type of request before.

Hart said the informal, verbal relationship his office traditionally has with the civil grand jury worked against him in this case.

He said in the future the sheriff's office will require grand jury subpoenas before producing information. This way, if similar claims arise in the future, the sheriff's office will have a paper trail to rely on. Short of a subpoena, there is no violation of state law, he said.

“We don’t ignore subpoenas,” Hart said.

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