Some 19 detainees in jails of Riverside County, Calif. died in 2022. That total, the highest the department had reported in at least three decades, ranked the jail system, east of Los Angeles, among the most lethal in the nation. The deaths, attributed to homicide, overdose, natural causes or suicide, reflected troubling patterns: neglect by jail employees, access to illicit drugs, and cell assignments that put detainees at increased risk of violence or did not allow for close oversight. The suicides offer particular insight into some of those institutional problems and lapses, an investigation by The New York Times and The Desert Sun found. The county sheriff’s department failed at times to monitor detainees adequately and to intervene when they attempted suicide. Guards did not always enforce rules prohibiting detainees with mental illnesses from blocking cell windows and cameras, which hinders the required safety monitoring. The department often isolated detainees with severe mental illness, which can exacerbate suicidal intentions.
The department has assumed no responsibility for these deaths. California’s attorney general last year opened an ongoing civil rights investigation into the increase in deaths in custody, and Riverside County agreed to pay more than $12 million to settle lawsuits linked to detainee deaths going back to 2020. At least a dozen cases are still pending. Sheriff Chad Bianco did not respond to interview requests or comment on detailed questions about the news organizations’ findings. In a podcast, he said that it can be extremely difficult at times to prevent suicides, and falsely claimed that there had never been any allegation that the department had “somehow done something wrong, or mishandled inmates, or mistreated inmates, or caused their death.” The newspapers interviewed dozens of people including current and former jail employees, relatives of the dead, independent medical examiners and civil rights lawyers. The news organizations also reviewed court documents, including arrest records, detainee medical and mental health records, and department notes on jail housing decisions. The suicides strongly suggest that, despite a federal class-action suit a decade ago that exposed deficiencies in mental health treatment in Riverside County jails and resulted in new court-ordered requirements, problems persist.
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