Advocating for the health and well being of jail residents, the correctional workforce and our community in response to COVID-19

CLUE Santa Barbara Clergy & Laity United for Economic Justice

Our CLUE Criminal Justice Workgroup is collaborating with Santa Barbara County Sheriff Commander Rob Plastino and Commander Ryan Sullivan, advocating for the health and well being of the jail residents, correctional workforce and our community in response to COVID-19. In April, CLUE SB sent to our commanders a copy of COVID recommendations from Amend at UCSF, which works to fundamentally transform culture inside prisons and jails to reduce their debilitating health effects.

“As the global COVID-19 pandemic accelerates, it is critical to acknowledge that incarcerated people in the U.S. have a constitutional right to community standard healthcare, and that older adults and those with chronic and/or serious medical conditions in prisons and jails are at grave risk of experiencing serious illness and death due to a COVID-19 infection– just as they would be in the community.”
–Correctional Facilities In The Shadow Of COVID-19: Unique Challenges And Proposed Solutions

Commander Ryan Sullivan responded to these recommendations and our questions regarding our local jail below:

All inmates that enter our facility are screened for temperature and COVID related symptoms prior to being allowed into the facility as part of the medical screening process. All staff and visitors to the facility are screened at the Main Jail entrance for temperature and COVID related symptoms prior to being allowed access. All inmates are quarantined for 14-days in our reception center and must pass a medical screening upon completion of the 14-day period prior to being re-housed into the Main Jail housing units. All inmates have been provided with a protective mask and also a cloth face covering. We conduct weekly face-to-face (with social distancing) meetings with our supervisors, medical staff and the entire inmate population to educate them on our efforts to protect them and keep everyone safe and healthy. We have provided extra cleaning supplies, soap and other materials to increase cleanliness inside the housing units and have increased our inmate cleaning crews greatly.

That is a brief synopsis of our efforts, but nowhere near our total preparedness, but I’ve responded quickly to the questions posed below (included below them further down this string). I did read the Amend guidance a few weeks ago and found that we had addressed all of the concerns noted in their recommendations, some more quickly than others as this pandemic progressed.

CLUE Questions and Responses from Commander Sullivan

What kinds of emotional support are you providing for jail residents and staff?
Our mental health clinicians are making continual rounds throughout the facility and are talking with inmates frequently. We have increased our access to tablets by utilizing extra staff to distribute them.

Is the Sheriff’s Treatment Program still continuing, with distance learning?
We have continued some Sheriff’s Treatment programs utilizing zoom technology and are in the process of expanding this to resume SBCC and other courses, which should occur within the next week or two.

What is happening with the dorm housing, with pre COVID beds with no space for distancing?
In most dorm style units, inmates are separating themselves by not sleeping directly above/below others or next to others and are staggering their sleeping arrangements to not be face-to-face or in close proximity to one another as much as possible.

What kinds of education are you providing on COVID to residents and staff? Are you able to rotate the laptops for this purpose?
We provided an initial briefing to all inmates in early/mid March on social distancing, hand and personal hygiene and how to properly wear a mask (which was issued to all inmates). We have rotated those topics and briefed on them again during subsequent briefings, including mask donning/doffing yesterday when we issued everyone a replacement mask. Staff were all sent the initial pandemic response plan in mid March and I’ve been sending an informational update e-mail every night for the past 45 days or so to update staff on events and changes to policies and procedures related to our COVID response. See my response regarding tablets above.

With the reported reduction in jail numbers,from those released and incoming, are you able to reduce/eliminate shared cells?
No, our population is just under 600 inmates, which is approximately 75% of our state rated capacity, therefore we cannot eliminate shared cells or dorm style units. Our focus has been on quarantining all inmates who leave the facility or enter and who could potentially transmit the virus to the rest of our population with focused efforts on staff measures. All staff are required to wear masks when inside of the jail facility, unless in an office space alone.

With the opening up of testing at Earl Warren for vulnerable populations, will the jail residents and staff all be tested?
We would love to test all inmates, but the capacity is not currently available to allow it. We just completed testing all of our staff and essential contractors, with well over 300 staff members tested and zero positive results.