By Phaedra Haywood
The Santa Fe New Mexican
SANTA FE COUNTY, N.M. — Conditions at the Santa Fe County jail have not improved enough to meet U.S. Department of Justice standards and in some cases have gotten worse, according to the department’s most recent report on the facility.
Medical care at the facility has “deteriorated significantly” since August 2006, access to mental-health care has improved but remains sub-par, and short staffing is an ongoing and persistentproblem that exacerbates the other two, according to the report.
Medical care provided to inmates with chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes was particularly poor, according to the report, which stated that one diabetic inmate waited 13 days for insulin and one asthmatic inmate waited two months for medication.
The Department of Justice has reviewed the jail quarterly since 2004, when the county signed a memorandum of agreement with the department to avoid litigation over conditions at the jailthat led to the removal of federal prisoners and to numerous lawsuits and claims of civil-rights violations. At the time, the jail was being run by a private contractor. The county took over administration of the jail about two years ago.
The agreement was supposed to be in place for nine months to three years, depending on the county’s level of compliance with the agreement’s terms. The three-year mark is in October.
But in a recent letter to jail director Annabelle Romero, Shanetta Y. Cutlar, chief of the special litigation section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, expressed doubt that the jail will be in compliance with federal standards by then.
County spokesman Stephen Ulibarri said county officials will meet with the Justice Department in September to discuss what will happen if the county can’t meet standards by October. Possibilities range from a reconstructed agreement to litigation against the county by the federal department, Ulibarri said.
The New Mexican requested an interview with Romero, who took over as jail director just under a year ago, but the county opted to have Ulibarri respond to questions in writing instead.
Below are summarized versions of his responses to some of the Justice Department findings.
Medical records
DOJ report: Medical records were incomplete and inconsistent and “disorganized.”
County response: The county is installing a new medical-records system identical to the one used by the state departments of Health and Corrections. Nurses will have wireless cards on their carts that will allow them immediate access to inmates’ complete medical records.
Access to mental- health care
DOJ report: The mental- health care delivered to inmates at the jail had improved since the last visit, according to the June report, which was generated based on a March inspection. But access to mental-health care continued to be inadequate, particularly at intake and for inmates in segregation.
County response: The county has hired a new mental-health director and reorganized how mental-health services are delivered. “Mental Health staff have been moved to offices within the facility instead of in the administrative area — creating a culture shift, a more ‘hands on’ approach,” according to Ulibarri.
Staffing problems
DOJ report: Staffing shortages at the jail have forced existing employees to perform work outside the scope of their expertise and to take on more work than they can competentlyperform. The county relies too heavily on temporary medical staff who, by their nature as temporary staff, are “insufficiently trained.”
According to the report,only two of nine nursing positions were filled with permanent staff at the time of the March review.
County response: The county recently increased compensation for corrections officers by about $2 per hour and is aggressively recruiting new officers. Fifteen new officers will complete training and begin working at the jail in October.
Ulibarri wrote that some of the vacancies were created when Romero took over and " began enforcing polices that had been ignored,” causing some staff to quit or be fired.
Ulibarri said he couldn’t say how many of the vacant positions were being filled by temporary employees because the number is “constantly in flux.”
County Commissioner Harry Montoya said he visited the jail about three weeks ago, and conditions where “drasticallydifferent” than they hadbeen at his last visit about a year ago. He said some of the deficiencies noted in the Department of Justice report might have been addressed since the March tour of the jail. “These things don’t happen overnight,” Montoya said. “For years, things were operating in a way that was unacceptable,and now we are turning itaround.”
Commissioner Virginia Vigil said the problems at the Santa Fe County jail are representative of global problems surrounding incarceration and a shortage of medical professionals.
She said the state requires the county to operate jails but doesn’t want to pay for the job to be done correctly.
“Jails are not prioritized when it comes to state and federal funding,” she said. “We’ve been trying to do this from our general fund, and that is our largest bill, the jail,” she said.
Vigil said unlike the private operator that previously ran the jail, the county needs to follow procurement and hiring rules, which keep it from being able to react to staff shortages and other problems as quickly as the Justice Department would like.
Vigil added that she had yet to see the most recent report on conditions at the jail but planned to attend the September meeting of jail and Justice Department officials to discuss long-term solutions to the jail’s problems.
Copyright 2007 The Santa Fe New Mexican