San Diego County Sheriff’s Office policy requires weekly sanitation and hygiene inspections at its jails, but a report by an environmental health specialist, hired by attorneys suing over jail conditions, questions whether that policy is being followed.
“Based on the conditions observed during my inspections, it is doubtful if meaningful sanitation and hygiene inspections are occurring,” Debra Graham wrote in her Aug. 7 report.
Graham toured six of the county’s seven jails last January and May, concluding that the Sheriff’s Office “fails to meet minimum environmental health and safety standards in their jail facilities.”
“It is perplexing to me how such filthy conditions can accumulate and continue without active intervention and corrective measures when deplorable conditions in some areas are so obvious,” she wrote.
The report was the first of 12 the attorneys plan to make public as part of a broader class-action lawsuit seeking to require the Sheriff’s Office to improve jail conditions and provide better care for mentally ill and otherwise disabled men and women in custody.
Observations in Graham’s report echo sworn declarations that were submitted by incarcerated people and included in the lawsuit, which was initially filed in February 2022 and granted class-action status in November 2023.
The release of Graham’s assessment follows a monthslong court battle during which attorneys for the county argued that the 12 expert reports included, and relied on, confidential information, like medical records. The county also argued that the news media would use the reports to embarrass the Sheriff’s Office and name employees.
“There is no doubt that Plaintiffs will publish the information to the San Diego Union Tribune and any other public forum to attack Defendants,” attorney Elizabeth Pappy wrote in an Oct. 1, 2024, court filing.
But on Dec. 18, Judge David Leshner ruled that most of the documents the county was seeking to keep confidential could be released as long as medical information was redacted.
Gay Grunfeld, one of the lead attorneys who filed the case, said they wanted the reports released because transparency will spur reform.
“The more information the jail releases, the better it’s going to be, both for its efforts to reform itself and for the public to understand the processes of this complex and frankly troubled system,” she said.
Lack of cleanliness and poor sanitation in San Diego County jails is among the lawsuit’s eight causes of action, which also seek to address what the plaintiffs say are over-incarceration, poor medical and mental health care and other issues.
“This is not a matter of a little dirt — these are wholesale violations of minimum standards that expose incarcerated class members to a serious risk of substantial harm,” Grunfeld said. “Rather than let these unsafe conditions continue unabated, we hope that the County will promptly agree to a remedial plan designed to bring San Diego’s facilities up to constitutional standards.”
Multiple people who have been incarcerated in San Diego jails provided sworn declarations in support of the lawsuit.
Photos included with the original filing show feces-covered walls in a cell intended for people at risk of suicide, mold caking a ceiling tile, a dead rat in a medical examination room and piles of trash and human waste in a unit reserved for psychiatric patients.
During her jail tours, Graham spoke with incarcerated people who described vermin infestations, widespread mold and broken toilets that went unfixed. Two men told her they had to scrape feces out of their cell’s toilet.
Graham inspected medical and dental facilities, kitchens and janitorial storage areas, finding problems at nearly every turn, including an officers dining room at the Central Jail that she described as filthy and in need of immediate cleaning.
Graham also noted the widespread use of triple cells, in which three people are assigned to a cell designed to hold two — a practice that has been flagged repeatedly by state regulators as unsafe.
“Incarcerated persons report they struggle with keeping their cell clean, especially with such limited space shared amongst three people,” she wrote. “They report they are not provided with sufficient cleaning supplies, and some incarcerated persons reported there are no cleaning supplies provided at all.”
Graham conducted her inspections in January and May 2024 and seemed surprised to find such poor conditions, given that sheriff’s officials had known she was coming.
“Our jail inspections were planned long in advance with ample time for Defendants to conduct cleanup operations prior to each inspection,” she wrote. “I nonetheless observed serious, unsafe, and unsanitary conditions at all six facilities I inspected.”
Not all of Graham’s report is critical. Though most toilets at the Central Jail were filthy, “some individual clean toilets were observed in Module 6E, Cell E01 and Module 8C.”
She also found the South Bay Detention Facility’s medical holding cell and exam room to be up to standards, and she found proof “that the Sheriff’s Department does have the capability and capacity to keep medical areas clean.”
The county hired its own expert to conduct jail inspections.
While Graham’s report is more than 90 pages, the report by Henrietta Peters — who currently works as the environmental health and safety compliance officer for the Nevada Department of Corrections — is a brief eight pages.
Peters described San Diego jails as “average or above-average” in cleanliness and said she saw no evidence of mold or insects during her mid-March inspections.
“There are issues that can be corrected with additional training, but based upon my observations and discussions with staff, the existing policies and practices provide a solid foundation,” she wrote.
Peters noted that since the lawsuit was filed, “staff at each detention facility have made significant efforts to enhance sanitation across the county … taking very seriously, from my observation, areas that needed improvement.”
Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Kimberly King said via email that she could not comment on the lawsuit but echoed Peters’ assessment.
“The safety and well-being of the incarcerated population and the individuals tasked with cleaning and maintenance are top priorities for the Sheriff’s Office,” she wrote. “To that end, we employ a multifaceted approach that includes training programs, professional partnerships, dedicated staff and regular inspections.”
King said that new protocols, adopted since Sheriff Kelly Martinez took office two years ago, include enhanced medical screenings to identify health and hygiene-related concerns and routine wellness checks by deputies and mental health clinicians.
The wellness checks began after Lonnie Rupard died from medical neglect. That neglect led the medical examiner to make the rare determination that his death was a homicide.
Rupard, who struggled with schizophrenia, had lost nearly a third of his body weight by the time he died. The walls and floor of his cell were smeared with feces.
The Sheriff’s Office leaves the task of cleaning the jails to incarcerated people, known as “trustees,” some of whom receive special training in facility maintenance and custodial services.
The Sheriff’s Office also contracts with an industrial cleaning company for deep cleanings and hazardous waste management, King said.
“We are committed to transparency and collaboration in our shared goal of maintaining safe and humane detention environments,” she added.
