{"id":801,"date":"2023-03-02T00:52:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-02T00:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=801"},"modified":"2023-03-02T00:52:59","modified_gmt":"2023-03-02T00:52:59","slug":"judge-to-fine-california-each-day-it-fails-to-complete-prisoner-suicide-prevention-measures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=801","title":{"rendered":"Judge to Fine California Each Day It Fails to Complete Prisoner Suicide Prevention Measures"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A federal judge said this week<\/a> that she will begin fining California potentially tens of thousands of dollars daily after more than 200 prison inmates killed themselves during eight years in which state corrections officials failed to complete court-ordered suicide prevention measures.<\/p>\n

Addressing a chronic tragedy that has plagued the state for decades, Chief U.S. District Judge Kimberly Mueller said she will start the fines April 1 \u2014 $1,000 a day for each of 15 unmet safeguards until all the state\u2019s 34 adult prisons are in full compliance.<\/p>\n

At the same time, she will impose fines for the state\u2019s failure to hire enough mental health professionals. And she set a hearing for August to collect more than $1.7 million in fines that have accumulated since 2017 under a previous order punishing delays in transferring inmates to state mental hospitals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court is at a critical crossroads,\u201d Mueller wrote<\/a> weeks ahead of her order, which was made public Tuesday. She said inmates with serious mental disorders make up more than one-third of California\u2019s prison population of about 96,000 and they have \u201cwaited far too long for constitutionally adequate mental health care.\u201d<\/p>\n

State officials said they will review the judge\u2019s orders. California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokesperson Vicky Waters said in a statement that \u201csuicide prevention is a very important issue for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

In court filings, state officials objected to Mueller\u2019s setting \u201can unworkable, all but impossible standard.\u201d They pointed to lower suicide rates each of the last two years, after two decades of California consistently exceeding the national suicide rate for state prison systems. The 15 suicides in 2021<\/a> were the fewest in two decades and half the annual average over that period. Attorneys representing inmates say there were 19 deaths by suicide last year, though the official report isn\u2019t out yet.<\/p>\n

Those recent lower suicide rates are \u201csignificant improvements and absolute evidence of success,\u201d Paul Mello, an attorney representing the state, told Mueller at a Feb. 10 hearing. A court-appointed suicide prevention expert, Lindsay Hayes, said the reasons for the sudden drop are unclear and the effect of the coronavirus pandemic will need to be analyzed.<\/p>\n

Suicides in California prisons have long been seen as a key indicator that the prison system isn\u2019t providing adequate mental health care. Mueller\u2019s predecessor ruled in the class-action lawsuit 27 years ago that California was providing unconstitutionally poor mental health care to inmates. Yet federal judges have struggled to force improvements despite repeated orders in the case.<\/p>\n

This time, Mueller is acting after Hayes found that the department still is failing to meet the standards despite an order dating to 2015. The safeguards include things like suicide prevention training, suicide risk evaluations, suicide-resistant cells, and checking on vulnerable inmates every 30 minutes, and often more frequently, to make sure they aren\u2019t harming themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very standard for prisons and jails around the country, and they\u2019re not doing them,\u201d said Michael Bien, one of the attorneys representing inmates.<\/p>\n

Among those who corrections officials say killed themselves is 31-year-old John Pantoja. He died by hanging in June, using a ligature torn from a bedsheet, according to the Sacramento County coroner.<\/p>\n

Pantoja was a funny, loving, caring, healthy, athletic young man until he went into California\u2019s juvenile justice system at age 16, his sister and father told KHN in an interview Tuesday.<\/p>\n

He emerged a changed man five years later, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe came out with his mental state just totally depleted,\u201d with multiple mental health diagnoses, including schizophrenia, and exhibiting mood swings consistent with bipolar disorder, Elizabeth Pantoja said. \u201cPrior to going in, we didn\u2019t see those signs. \u2026 That was opposite of how we knew him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within a few months of his release from juvenile lockup, he engaged in a robbery and shootout with Chula Vista police in 2012. His defense<\/a> at the time was that he had been attempting \u201csuicide by cop,\u201d enticing an officer to kill him. Once in prison, Amado Pantoja said, John heard voices he blamed on the mental health medications he was prescribed. Amado and Elizabeth said John seemed to be looking forward to a birthday visit from his family and a 2026 parole hearing based on his young age at the time of his crime.<\/p>\n

His mental health really deteriorated in the last five years, when he was repeatedly put in solitary confinement and cut off from family visits during the pandemic, they said. More recently, the television he treated like a form of therapy had been broken, although his family was sending him a new one, and he\u2019d seen medical workers with complaints of chronic pain.<\/p>\n

He died the next day with a half-dozen drugs in his system, including medications for depression, pain, and seizures.<\/p>\n

Amado Pantoja holds pictures of his son, John Pantoja, who died in prison by hanging using a ligature torn from a bedsheet. A federal judge said she will begin fining California for the state\u2019s failure to complete court-ordered suicide prevention measures.(Elizabeth Pantoja)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a report of prisoner suicides between January 2020 and April 2022, Hayes frequently detailed missed opportunities to prevent deaths:<\/p>\n