After the Union-Tribune published the “Dying Behind Bars” investigation in September, showing that San Diego’s jail death rate significantly exceeds the rate in California’s five other largest counties, Sheriff Bill Gore wrote an explanation.
In the other counties, Gore said, cities have their own lockups — taking some of the highest risk inmates off the hands of county jails.
“Experts agree that the first days of custody are the highest risk time for in-custody deaths,” Gore wrote in a response published in the Union-Tribune. “Many of the comparison counties cited by the Union-Tribune have pre-arraignment city-run jails where most, if not all, of the newly arrested in those cities are held.
“As a result, the comparison county jail statistics are lower than San Diego County jails, because San Diego County has no city-run jails.”
The Union-Tribune decided to re-run the numbers with deaths in city jails included, to see whether it changes the picture of San Diego’s inmate mortality rate compared to other large California counties. The review included the same 10 years of data for all six counties, from 2009 through 2018.
For this review, the newspaper used a statewide database maintained by the California Department of Justice for consistency. The numbers differ slightly from the data set used for the “Dying Behind Bars” series, which also relied on data collected directly from counties. The state database does not always reflect complete counts for more recent years, as causes of death take time to be confirmed and updated.
Data show factoring in city jail deaths didn’t change inmate mortality rates for Santa Clara and Sacramento counties, which reported no deaths in city-run jails during the 10-year period.
City jail deaths made a slight difference in San Bernardino County, as a result of a death in the Rialto jail in 2010. In San Diego County, one death in 2013 in an Escondido Police holding cell was reported to the state and therefore counted in the new 10-year review of jail deaths.
The most significant number of city jail deaths occurred in Orange and Los Angeles counties. Orange County saw 11 city jail deaths between 2009 and 2018, including three at the Santa Ana jail. Forty-five people died in city jails in Los Angeles County, most of them in jails run by the Long Beach and Los Angeles police departments.
Jail mortality rates are calculated by dividing the number of deaths by the average daily population in each jail, expressed in of 100,000. This is the same methodology used by experts, oversight groups and state and federal government agencies such as the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The rate allows an apples-to-apples comparison of jail systems of varying size.
When looking only at county jail deaths, the 10-year rate in San Diego County was 243.7 deaths per 100,000 inmates, compared to 155.9 in San Bernardino, 149.5 in Los Angeles, 145.9 in Santa Clara, 118.1 in Orange and 93.9 in Sacramento.
Under the new review, which includes deaths in city-run jails, San Diego County still has the highest 10-year mortality rate of 245.6 deaths per 100,000 inmates. It’s followed by Los Angeles with 175.8 deaths, San Bernardino at 157.7, Santa Clara at 145.9, Orange at 136.6 and Sacramento at 93.9.
Lt. Justin White, a spokesman for the sheriff, said the department has taken a serious look at deaths in jail and is working to make inmates as safe as possible.
“This is a very complicated issue that Sheriff Gore and the Department take very seriously,” he said by email. “We are not trying to minimize any death by the way statistics are compared. It is inappropriate to pick one statistic and use it to measure different detention systems throughout the state.”
There’s an important caveat with the new analysis. While county jails routinely track and report their average daily population, that statistic is not routinely reported or monitored for city-run jails. City officials told the Union-Tribune that obtaining that figure for a 10-year data analysis would be time-consuming, if not impossible.
For example, Anaheim Police Department officials said in October that the information could be obtained through a public records request. In a November response to the request, police records manager Danielle Best said there are no responsive documents and the department is not required by law to create a record containing the requested information.
The Costa Mesa Police Department was able to provide calculations for 2015 through 2019, but officials said previous years’ numbers were stored on an old records system, which the city no longer has access to.
Lacking data on average daily populations in city-run jails, the Union-Tribune simply added the city-run jail deaths to the county jail deaths, then recalculated the death rate using the county jail population as the denominator.
This method will tend to slightly overstate the death rates in other counties that include more city run jails than San Diego. This is the most conservative approach to testing the sheriff’s claim; it nonetheless still shows San Diego with the highest death rate.
