A state office created in 2024 to scrutinize local investigations into jail deaths has yet to complete a single review of the more than 150 people who have died in custody in California\u2019s county jails over the past year-and-a-half.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because it hasn\u2019t received the records needed to fully analyze the deaths, according to the Board of State and Community Corrections, a regulatory body appointed by the governor to oversee the state\u2019s jails and juvenile halls.<\/p>\n
SB 519, signed into law in October 2023, established the In-Custody Death Review Division within the BSCC following a series of deadly years in San Diego<\/a>, Riverside<\/a> and Los Angeles<\/a> county jails.<\/p>\n But the new law\u2019s limitations quickly became apparent once the division began collecting data on deaths that occurred after its formation in July 2024. The initial information submitted by counties lacked sufficient detail, with the majority of the means and manners of death listed as \u201cpending investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n Such internal investigations can take months \u2014 sometimes even years \u2014 to complete.<\/p>\n In early discussions, the counties made it \u201cclear they would not send nonpublic information,\u201d such as medical records or investigatory materials, according to Jana Sanford-Miller, a spokesperson for the BSCC.<\/p>\n \u201cSome agencies did not send records, and others sent redacted records,\u201d Sanford-Miller said. \u201cWe have yet to receive a completed investigation for an in-custody death in a local detention facility.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result, it hasn\u2019t completed any review, though there is hope that will change soon.<\/p>\n Late last year, the BSCC worked with the governor\u2019s office, the Legislature and the Department of Finance to add language to a trailer bill hitched to the 2025-26 budget that clarified that ICDR\u2019s director and employees can have full, unredacted access to investigative records, including medical information that would otherwise be protected under federal privacy laws.<\/p>\n Allison Ganter, appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom to a six-year term as the division\u2019s director in October 2024, stressed in a statement that her office is \u201ccommitted to conducting meaningful and transparent reviews of deaths that occur in local detention facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFamilies experience unimaginable pain when their loved ones die in custody, and that pain is magnified when questions about their death go unanswered,\u201d she stated. \u201cOur goal is to understand why people die in custody, make recommendations to prevent future deaths, and share our findings to drive systematic change in local detention facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n A spokesperson for Newsom\u2019s office declined to comment.<\/p>\n Original bill touted<\/p>\n Newsom, in response to questions in early 2024 from CalMatters about high statewide jail deaths<\/a>, touted signing the legislation, saying it would create \u201ca point person specifically responsible for overseeing what\u2019s happening in county jails\u201d who would work with California Attorney General Rob Bonta\u2019s Office to advance Department of Justice investigations into the deaths. Bonta had sued Riverside County<\/a> in 2023 and later would sue Los Angeles County<\/a> in 2025 over \u201cinhumane\u201d jail conditions.<\/p>\n The ICDR, however, is \u201cnot currently working with the Attorney General\u2019s office on in-custody deaths,\u201d according to Sanford-Miller.<\/p>\n Advocates and the families of the deceased have called for independent review of in-custody deaths for years. Official autopsy reports \u2014 one of the few publicly accessible records prior to SB 519\u2019s passage \u2014 typically do not factor in the quality of medical care or how conditions within the jails may have contributed to an inmate\u2019s death.<\/p>\n Last year, the Southern California News Group analyzed<\/a> more than a thousand pages of lawsuits, audits, coroner reports and investigative reviews. The review<\/a> found that someone died in custody in the jails of Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties every five days on average and detailed instances of institutional neglect and failed supervision.<\/p>\n In one example, a 61-year-old man was listed as dying of \u201cmultiple organ failure\u201d and heart disease in March 2023 by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner\u2019s Office, yet a review by an oversight agency found that he had presented with hypothermia and a body temperature of 87.6 degrees after heating systems failed in Los Angeles\u2019 downtown jails.<\/p>\n In Riverside County, the cause of death for an inmate who died in 2020 was listed as acute methamphetamine intoxication even though he had been violently subdued by a team of correctional deputies inside a cell at the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning two days before he died.<\/p>\n The four counties had nearly 500 deaths from January 2020 to the end of 2025. Two-thirds of those who died had not been convicted of anything.<\/p>\n Some families are forced to turn to lawsuits and even commission independent autopsies to try to get answers.<\/p>\n \u201cSo many of the families that are impacted by these jail deaths have to spend their whole lives, have to spend every waking moment, doing their own investigations,\u201d said Nick Shapiro, a UCLA assistant professor who studies Los Angeles County\u2019s jails.<\/p>\n Law is \u2018clawless\u2019<\/p>\n There was \u201ccautious excitement\u201d when SB 519 was introduced, but the law, as written, is \u201cclawless\u201d when it comes to holding counties accountable, Shapiro said. An early version<\/a> would have given county supervisors the authority to strip control of jails away from sheriff\u2019s departments that failed to address problems by instead creating a separate county Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.<\/p>\n That language never made it out of the Senate.<\/p>\n Under the final version<\/a>, the ICDR Division can review investigations into deaths \u2014 rather than investigating a death itself \u2014 to evaluate a law enforcement agency\u2019s performance and can consider \u201cthe circumstances prior to, during and after the in-custody death incident\u201d as part of that evaluation, according to a September 2025 fact sheet<\/a>. It can then make recommendations to the agency for improvements, report its findings publicly, use that information to find jails \u201cout of compliance\u201d with the state\u2019s Welfare and Institutions Code and even call police chiefs and sheriffs to answer before the Board of State and Community Corrections.<\/p>\n But it can\u2019t force sheriff\u2019s departments to adhere to those recommendations and there is no enforcement mechanism described if an agency refuses to turn over the records the ICDR relies upon.<\/p>\n If the state wants actual oversight and accountability, the ICDR needs subpoena power and the authority to conduct its own investigations by interviewing witnesses, reconstructing timelines and commissioning independent autopsies, Shapiro said.<\/p>\n \u201cI hope Sacramento can get it to together to make this use of taxpayer money meaningful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Oversight without enforcement<\/p>\n California has a long history of creating oversight bodies without sufficient powers to carry out their mandates, said Marcella Rosen, a media coordinator for the Care First California Coalition, a group of community organizations that, among other reforms, is pushing for the closure of Men\u2019s Central Jail in Los Angeles County.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was set up to fail, from our perspective of actually saving lives,\u201d Rosen said of the ICDR. \u201cOversight bodies that aren\u2019t given enforcement powers are extremely limited.\u201d<\/p>\n Some, such as oversight commissions in Los Angeles County, even have subpoena powers, yet still have to fight to get records from county departments.<\/p>\n But even without subpoena power, the ICDR could do more to shine light on jail deaths, Rosen said. The California Department of Justice has decades of data on in-custody deaths that could be analyzed to identify trends. The records that sheriff\u2019s departments and medical examiners must release publicly, while limited, could still provide fodder for analysis, Rosen said.<\/p>\n First reports coming<\/p>\n Following the changes to state law and a budget increase, ICDR now hopes to publish its first public reports in the second quarter of 2026.<\/p>\n California doubled the ICDR\u2019s funding to nearly $5.4 million and authorized up to 25 positions in the current fiscal year. The additional money will allow it to hire staff with medical and behavioral health backgrounds to review deaths from those perspectives.<\/p>\n After the trailer bill passed, ICDR immediately began requesting new information from the county agencies that will allow it to \u201cconduct initial facility operational reviews of in-custody deaths, analyze the updated data, build publicly available data dashboards, and begin trend analysis,\u201d according to Sanford-Miller, the BSCC spokesperson.<\/p>\n While there has still been \u201csome hesitancy to share sensitive information\u201d during conversations with local agencies, the ICDR hasn\u2019t experienced actual \u201cresistance\u201d yet, Sanford-Miller said.<\/p>\n It is still in the process of completing the new records requests to California\u2019s 58 counties.<\/p>\n \u201cIncomplete records will impact the timing of our reviews, especially in complicated cases,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we have a complete picture of the records we\u2019ll be receiving and reviewing and better understand when those records will be submitted after a death, we will create a process in which initial reviews in these complicated cases can be completed and perhaps inform initial recommendations before the investigation is fully complete.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A state office created in 2024 to scrutinize local investigations into jail deaths has yet to complete a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":528253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,16055,5295,1854,41040,2961,224,6080,5337,50,1036,8470,17748,3550,91523,52],"class_list":["post-528511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-ca","tag-california","tag-california-news","tag-crime-and-public-safety","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-jails","tag-la","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-losangeles","tag-news","tag-orange-county","tag-riverside-county","tag-san-bernardino-county","tag-san-diego-county","tag-socal-watchdog","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}