The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office saw an increase in inmate complaints about access to medical, mental health, and dental care as well as medication-assisted treatment for inmates facing substance use disorders.
Second District Supervisor Laura Capps pulled the report for discussion during the March 19 Board of Supervisors meeting because grievances haven’t been discussed at a supervisorial level in a few years. She said she wanted to give it some “air time” because of an upcoming jail health presentation on April 3.
“An inmate grievance is a complaint or question about any condition of confinement,” Cmdr. Ryan Sullivan told the board on March 19. “An inmate or incarcerated person can submit a grievance about a medical condition they feel is not being treated fairly, a medication they might not be prescribed correctly, as well as issues of sanitation of their living quarters, current housing, amongst many other items.”
In 2023, 1,646 inmates filed medical and nonmedical grievances to the Sheriff’s Office—a jump from 1,292 in 2020 and 931 in 2021, according to the staff report. The Sheriff’s Office received the most grievances in 2022 with 1,692.
“Significant trends observed in the grievance reports are an increase in the amount of grievances related to access to care, medications, as well as medication-assisted treatment (MAT), mental health and dental care,” according to the staff report. “Some aspects that impacted the amount of grievances submitted during this four-year period include the activation of the Northern Branch Jail, the staffing levels of the health care provider, custody staffing levels, COVID-19 impacts, and the planned increased capacity of the MAT program.”
Inmates submit grievances to the medical grievance oversight coordinator—a position created to ensure that medical or mental health related care concerns from inmates are addressed appropriately.
“Our staff looks into those items, and we respond in writing to the individual who submitted a grievance with a response. Over 90 percent of the time that response is satisfactory with the inmate, there’s no further escalation or anything else needed,” Sullivan said. “But inmates do have the opportunity to appeal that, and it would go to another supervisor at a higher level and give a response accordingly.”
The coordinator meets regularly with the Community Corrections Input Group—a group of community organizations that assist in making recommendations for improvements to the grievance process.
That group formed in 2016 when the county’s health care provider—before current provider Wellpath took over—performed poorly for inmates, Lynn Gibbs told the supervisors during public comment. Gibbs serves as Santa Barbara County’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) public policy chair and served on the Community Corrections Input Group.
“I think we were able to do some very good work. For example we had early input into the jail-based competency treatment program and we regularly review grievances each month related to health care in the jail,” Gibbs said. “The relationship then was really excellent with the Wellpath coordinator. … When concerns came up, she was very accessible to talk them through and resolve things.”
At that point, Gibbs stepped away from the Community Corrections Input Group to take on other tasks, but she noticed a 53 percent increase in grievances in the most recent monthly report compared to “the five-year average before that” when she returned to the group four months ago, Gibbs said.
“This past month, I noticed that there were five grievances related to serious leg infections—one was a duplicate but another one didn’t reach the point of grievance, but was serious because we heard from a family member,” Gibbs said. “Those are the kinds of things we can hone in on when we review the reports and try to get them addressed.”
