More than 2½ years after a federal magistrate ordered San Francisco to allow its jail inmates access to sunlight, their lawyer says officers have done nothing to comply and instead have deprived hundreds of inmates of access to healthful conditions, food and medical care.
County Jail 2 in San Francisco, which holds 392 inmates, is “old, dilapidated and suffering from deferred maintenance,” and conditions have gotten worse since the magistrate’s October 2024 order, attorney Yolanda Huang said in a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday.
In that order, which applied to all county jails, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sallie Kim said San Francisco and its sheriff’s office had acted with “reckless indifference” to the inmates’ health at a San Bruno facility and had failed to explain its refusal to allow them into an outdoor exercise yard.
In response, Sheriff Paul Miyamoto removed some of the covering from windows at the San Francisco jail’s gym, allowing a view of the sun, but did not permit them to enter the exercise yard or any other outdoor area.
“They have no opportunity to be exposed to direct sunlight and live under artificial light 24 hours a day,” Huang wrote in the lawsuit by 10 women on behalf of the 75 female and up to 317 male inmates in Jail 2. “Inmate sleeping areas have glass in the walls, which permit a distant view of the outside, but no sunlight enters the jail.”
And she said they are suffering health problems as a result: sleep disorders, blood sugar disorders, headaches, digestive problems, loss of eyesight and memory, lethargy and dementia.
They also lack access to hot water and adequate plumbing, the jail is crowded with insects, and their food is heavy in sugar and starch and low in fruit and vegetables, Huang said. She said the city’s food contractor fails to clean the trays thoroughly after meals, instead giving them only a brief wash before returning them with residue of leftover food or soap.
And Huang said the female inmates have worse health problems because they are excluded from the city’s other two jails in San Bruno, where male inmates have some access to sunlight. All 10 plaintiffs have gained substantial amounts of weight and most are at increased risk of cancer, the attorney said.
City Attorney David Chiu’s office declined to comment, saying it had not yet been served with the lawsuit. Previously, Chiu and Miyamoto contended the city was complying with the magistrate’s sunlight-access order by removing covers from the windows.
The jail holds inmates who are serving sentences for misdemeanor crimes or who have not been released on bail while awaiting trial. Other than those held in solitary confinement, inmates were allowed out of their cells for much of the day before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and had access to an outdoor gym but could not go outdoors for exercise.
In defense of their door-lock policy, jail officials cited security concerns and contended the inmates had no constitutional right to be outdoors. But Kim, who presided over a nonjury trial, cited testimony from an expert witness that prolonged lack of exposure to direct sunlight can cause high blood pressure, weight gains and other health problems.
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This article originally published at Sunlight ruling for San Francisco jails being ignored, suit claims.