Editorial: You can’t run Fresno jail on the cheap

When Fresno County officials were scrambling to cuts costs at the height of the recession, the jail’s health manager came up with a way to cut medication costs by $70,000 a month.

To the detriment of inmates’ health and the safety of the jail’s correctional officers, no one in Fresno County’s top management ranks remembered the adage that if something appears to good to be true, it probably is.

Those savings were the result of policies that included forcing inmates to switch medications and arbitrarily deciding that some inmates who appeared to be mentally ill were faking symptoms.

The jail’s new policies, while supported by some in the corrections industry, were roundly criticized by the medical community.

Others pointed out that the savings were illusory. Randall Hagar, government-affairs director of the California Psychiatric Association, told The Bee’s Pablo Lopez in 2009: “Sure, pharmacy costs go down, but the cost to the system goes up.”

An example of the higher expenses: When inmates become incompetent, it delays court proceedings and drives up legal costs.

This inhumane treatment of mentally ill inmates was a focus of The Bee’s Watchdog Report “Locked In Terror” in 2013 and the object of a federal class action lawsuit filed by a group of Fresno County Jail inmates.

As The Bee’s Marc Benjamin reported Thursday, the suit has been settled. Inmates will now receive their proper medications and the county must hire more than 100 new correctional officers to reduce violence by inmates against other inmates.

The lesson here: While it’s important to look for efficiencies in running a jail, the locking-up of inmates and providing them with proper care is never going to be cheap — especially when jail is where mentally ill people often wind up.

This story was originally published May 28, 2015 at 8:53 AM with the headline "Editorial: You can’t run Fresno jail on the cheap."