Justice Department and County of San Luis Obispo reach agreement over alleged civil rights violations at the San Luis Obispo County Jail

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it had reached an agreement with San Luis Obispo County resolving claims that the conditions of confinement in the county violated the Eighth and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The settlement agreement requires San Luis Obispo County to appoint an expert to assess the county's compliance with the agreement's stipulations for the San Luis Obispo County Jail which include:

• Stop housing people with serious mental illness in isolation absent specific and significant protections
• Require any use of force by staff to comply with Constitutional standards
• Implement a quality assurance program to identify and correct systemic deficiencies
• Take steps to protect incarcerated people from risk of suicide

The appointed expert is required to issue public reports every six months detailing the county's compliance with the agreement noted the Department of Justice in a press release about the agreement.

In October of 2018, the Justice Department initiated an investigation of the San Luis Obispo County Jail under the authority of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act shared the Department of Justice.

The County of San Luis Obispo received the results of the investigation in August of 2021 which stipulated minimum remedial measures regarding the violations that had been discovered during the investigation explained the Department of Justice.

Specifically, the Justice Department concluded that the following were believed to violate civil rights protections extended to incarcerated people including:

• Failure to provide constitutionally adequate medical care to prisoners
• Failure to provide constitutionally adequate mental health care to prisoners
• Use of prolonged restrictive housing under conditions that violate the constitutional right of prisoners with serious mental illness
• Failure to prevent, detect, or correct the use of excessive force that violated the constitutional rights of prisoners
• Denial of equal access to prisoners with disabilities, a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act

When the findings were issued, the County of San Luis Obispo had 49 days to correct the abuses of federally-protected rights for prisoners before a lawsuit would be filed under the authority of the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act stated the findings report.

On Thursday, the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office issued a press release highlighting their agency's commitment to improving jail services in the county stating, "We are pleased with the Settlement Agreement, as it not only highlights the significant advancements we’ve achieved over the years but also underscores the progress we are committed to maintaining."

In response to the allegations, the Sheriff's Office made a series of changes including:

• Entering into a comprehensive contact with a private company to provide physical, mental, and dental health care in the county's jail in 2019
• Added a full-time Chief Medical Officer to the Sheriff's Office to oversee the contract
• Received healthcare accreditation by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care in 2022

Anyone in the seven counties that are part of the U.S. Department of Justice's Central District of California, such as San Luis Obispo County, Santa Barbara County, or Ventura County, can file a complaint asserting violations of civil rights with the Civil Rights Section, Civil Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office by completing the following form (English version and Spanish version) and emailing it to USACAC.CV-CivilRights@usdoj.gov.