The Shasta County Jail in downtown Redding has a capacity of 484 detainees. However, the facility has seen a high rate of deaths in recent years, with 24 fatalities since 2020. The majority of these deaths were among individuals who were still waiting for their day in court.

Suicides in the Jail

Analysis of the deaths reveals that the most common cause of death in the jail over the last six years has been suicide. Records show that eight out of nine deaths ruled as suicides had documented histories of serious mental health disorders. All but one of the suicides occurred within a month of the individual being locked up, sometimes within just days or even hours of entering the jail.

Jail staff reportedly followed the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office’s standards of care for those who died, which include welfare checks that occur once an hour for most individuals and twice every 30 minutes for those being closely monitored for psychiatric reasons or for substance withdrawal. However, documents show that high-risk individuals consistently died in between those periods of monitoring.

The data about these deaths indicate that lives could be saved by implementing closer monitoring of high-risk individuals, including 24/7 observation of those in an acute crisis. Adding more frequent monitoring checks among the general population during the first few weeks of incarceration could further reduce the risk of death.

Response from Elected Officials

Elected officials have acknowledged the jail’s high death rate. However, neither the Shasta County Board of Supervisors nor Shasta Sheriff Michael Johnson responded to requests for comment on the specifics of this story, including the patterns of deaths and the feasibility of monitoring.

Original reporting: Shasta Scout (Redding) — read the source article.