Report: Inspectors Concerned with Lack of Medical Evaluations at Southwest Juvenile Hall

By City News Service:

Inspections conducted throughout the last year at Riverside County jails and juvenile halls identified leaky pipes, lax policies and one or two instances of improper food handling, according to a report submitted to the Board of Supervisors this week.

The 2014 Annual Detention Facility Health Inspections compendium was filed Tuesday without comment in a 3-0 vote by the board.

The 30-page evaluation found no serious violations at any of the facilities toured by a three-person team from the Department of Public Health. However, there were a slew of nagging deficiencies highlighted, most of them related to housekeeping and documentation.

The Smith Correctional Facility in Banning appeared to have the highest number of leaks in showers and sewer pipes. According to the report, the jail’s on-site warehouse also had too much Decon rodent poison that needed to be replaced with “live traps, snap or sticky traps” so that critters aren’t able to crawl into inaccessible places.

Nearly all of the county’s five jails have an issue with mattresses tearing or wearing out too fast, the report stated. The problem was particularly bad at the Robert Presley Detention Center in Riverside, where staff told inspectors they were having to replace 25-30 mattresses every week because of tears.

The replacement costs were not mentioned.

RPDC food handlers were flagged by the inspectors for leaving potentially “hazardous foods” in open buffets for too long.

The Southwest Detention Center in Murrieta had few issues, other than plumbing, but the report pointed to concerns at the nearby Southwest Juvenile Hall. According to the inspectors, there was evidence that minors had not received medical appraisals within the recommended 96-hour admission window and that emergency protocols for dealing with “suicidal behaviors” had not been established in policy manuals.

All three of the county’s active juvenile detention facilities were flagged for not having procedures spelling out how and when to place pregnant minors in restraints.

The health inspectors also noted that Indio Juvenile Hall should have a psychiatrist available for mental health evaluations and counseling on the weekends.

The inspectors complained that at the nearby Indio Jail randomly selected health records were illegibly signed. They also emphasized that a better system of ensuring inmates were taking their medications -- such as having both a nurse and deputy confirm ingestion -- was needed.

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