Fresno County is seeking an order to terminate a consent decree governing spending on healthcare for inmates in the county’s jail facilities.
The county sent a letter to the Prison Law Office last week formally stating that it has fulfilled a 2015 settlement that resolved a class action lawsuit.
The backstory: The Prison Law Office filed a class action lawsuit (Hall v. County of Fresno) on behalf of incarcerated people in the Fresno County Jail in 2011, claiming that the county was violating the U.S. Constitution and federal disability law by not providing adequate healthcare and mental health services.
The Prison Law Office is a Berkeley nonprofit that works to reduce incarceration.
The court approved a settlement in 2015 that required Fresno County to improve medical and mental health care for inmates. The Prison Law Office has monitored the county’s compliance over the last decade.
Driving the news: The Prison Law Office sent a letter to Fresno County on May 20 claiming the county has failed to comply with healthcare requirements in the settlement, requesting the county take certain steps to meet its obligations.
“This includes, but is not limited to, addressing its long-standing failure to ensure a sufficient number of healthcare staff, adequate clinical space, safe detoxification practices, and community-standard treatment for chronic conditions,” the letter reads.
Specifically, the Prison Law Office detailed a number of supposed issues in the county jail, claiming the county has failed to deliver timely care to incarcerated people, the jail lacks clinic space, that detoxification procedures are not followed, a lack of chronic disease management, deficient medication delivery and ineffective quality assurance processes.
One week later, the Prison Law Office sent another letter to Fresno County saying it will proceed with a motion for contempt in federal court to force the county into compliance.
“Since 2015, when the district court adopted the Consent Decree and Remedial Plan, the County ahs consistently failed to comply with its legal obligations,” the letter reads. “Year after year, the court-appointed medical care experts issue reports advising the district court that the County has failed to reach substantial compliance with clear obligations that protect the health and safety of the Hall class. Year after year, the court-appointed experts provide detailed recommendations about critical medical care issues which the County declines to implement.”
The nonprofit said Fresno County reneged on an agreement to perform a healthcare staffing study to address the understaffing impacting healthcare delivery in the jail.
The other side: In response, Fresno County sent a letter to the Prison Law Office on May 27 stating that it has met all requirements of the settlement, disputing the nonprofit’s claims.
Fresno County said in a statement Monday that it has invested more than $300 million to improve health and mental health care in the jail.
The county said rapidly escalating medical costs, combined with inconsistent demands by the Prison Law Office and similar organizations, have placed an unfair and unsustainable burden on counties.
“Local governments across California are already facing reductions in both federal and State funding – resources that are vital for supporting public safety, agriculture, disaster prevention and response, as well as human and health services for law-abiding residents,” the county said in a statement. “The County maintains the jail has met, and in many areas exceeded, the obligations outlined in the Consent Decree and its remedial plan provisions. However, the Prison Law Office still alleges that the County is failing to comply with its legal obligations.”
Fresno County Board of Supervisors Chair Garry Bredefeld called the allegations outrageous since the county has gone above and beyond its duty to provide high quality healthcare to inmates.
“Ironically, the State’s realignment in AB 109 placed the burden on our law-abiding taxpayers by transferring thousands of felony-convicted inmates from State prisons to county jails that were designed for short-term stays and low-level offenders,” Bredefeld said. “Despite the State’s shift to counties, Fresno County has gone above and beyond what is constitutionally required.”