By Arturo Castañares
Publisher

A New York judge last month ordered an appointed remediation manager to oversee the notorious jail on Rikers Island in New York after 40 inmates have died since 2022, yet more inmates have died in San Diego County jails without any substantial reform taking place.

46 inmates have died in San Diego County jails since 2022, including 19 in 2022, 13 in 2023, 8 last year, and 6 so far this year.

Those are more deaths per year than Rikers, a jail known as one of the worst -if not the worst- in the country, with stabbings, slashing, fights, assaults on staff, and high numbers of inmate deaths.

In comparison, Rikers has had 40 deaths since 2022, with 19 that year, 9 in 2023, 7 in 2024, and 5 so far this year.

And, before anyone complains about comparing apples to oranges, the jail population of Rikers is larger than the combined population of all seven of San Diego’s County jails, so the percentage of deaths per thousand is even higher for San Diego jails.

Rikers Island, isolated on a small island in New York City’s East River, houses up to 10,000 inmates daily, even though some are transferred in and out in a matter of days.

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department operates seven jail facilities throughout the county with a “combined average daily population of more than 5,000 incarcerated persons”, according to the Sheriff’s Department website.

Deaths in San Diego County jails have been attributed to drug overdoses, suicides, natural causes, and medical neglect or inadequate care.

16 of the inmate deaths since 2022 were from drug overdoses, including from the use of Fentanyl.

Unfortunately, there are always drugs in jails and prisons, usually smuggled into the facility by new inmates who weren’t properly searched or by visitors who pass drugs during visitations.

Failing to properly and thoroughly search inmates and visitors in a failure of the staff.

But it is also concerning that San Diego Sheriffs, including current Sheriff Kelly Martinez, have resisted instituting searches for staff and officers who work in the jails. When inmates have drugs, paraphernalia, and even cell phones, someone smuggled those things into the jails for profit.

Martinez opposed scanning jail staffers -including officers- saying the radiation exposure was dangerous to their health, yet the CDC says those scanners release less radiation than a typical cell phone they carry.

Either way —whether by failing to search inmates and visitors or by allowing staff to smuggle contraband in— it’s a total failure of the Sheriff’s Department.

When inmates are in custody, they are legally in the custody of the Sheriff, without any freedom to leave or provide for themselves. They are also in the care of the Sheriff, totally exposed to the environment created by their captors.

And as we know, unfortunately, Latinos and Blacks are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system, meaning our communities are at higher risk in dangerous jails.

Sheriff Martinez has served her entire 40-year career within the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, rising to the rank of Under Sheriff for her predecessor, Sheriff Bill Gore, before being elected to the top job in 2022.

During her campaign, Martinez pledged to deal with the historically high death rate of inmates as a top priority.

Some of San Diego's most powerful Democrats endorsed Martinez in her campaign, including State Senate leader Toni Atkins, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, County Board of Supervisors Chair Nathan Fletcher, and Congressman Juan Vargas.

La Prensa San Diego did not endorse Martinez in her 2022 election, and the unprecedented number of jail deaths was the primary reason for our opposition. We felt something had to change and a career Sheriff’s Department insider was probably not the one to do it.

Now, more than two years into her tenure as Sheriff, the jail deaths continue at an alarming rate, and still higher than Rikers again so far this year.

Our concerns seem to have been realized.

Last year, the County paid out a $14 million settlement to the family of a pregnant inmate who collapsed in her cell and was left unattended until she died.

At the same time, the executive officer of the County’s Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) resigned after struggled for more than three years to effect real change within the jail system because the review board has no power to implement reforms.

Inmates’ families and the public have demanded action but no concrete reforms have been announced to deal with the deaths which will only continue as fentanyl becomes more prevalent both as a standalone drug but also as other drugs are laced with the deadly powder.

In 2023, in response to inmate deaths here, San Diego State Senator Toni Atkins authored a new statewide law requiring sheriff’s departments to release more information on inmate deaths, yet Martinez continues to resist full transparency and efforts by the County Board of Supervisors to force disclosure by threatening to withhold funding to the Sheriff have been spun as “defunding police.”

So why aren't all the Democrats who publicly supported Martinez for office -including Atkins- demanding action now?

When an agency can’t deal with it own problems it sometimes takes an outside view and direction to make the necessary changes.

As the judge in New York realized, Rikers Island was not going to get fixed on a slow and incremental pace; something drastic had to change.

San Diego County jails are dangerous. Inmates have and continue to die for too many reasons, most of which could and should be dealt with by the Sheriff.

It may take an independent manager to take over the jails and implement comprehensive changes.

We need action now. Lives depend on it.