As NC inmate deaths rose, sheriffs didn’t fix known problems in jails, probe finds

As the number of people dying inside North Carolina jails continues to increase, a new investigation finds that state officials don’t hold jailers accountable for overcrowding and supervision failures that put inmates at risk.

Violations of state regulations detected during previous inspections persisted in jails in many cases where inmates died in custody, a Disability Rights North Carolina investigation shows.

In Rowan County, the investigation found four inmates had died over a three-year period in which the state cited the jail repeatedly for overcrowded conditions. In each of those deaths, the state found jailers hadn’t regularly checked on the inmates as required. State regulators had told Vance County’s jail to fix a broken intercom for two years before an inmate collapsed and another had to pound on a door for help.

The state Department of Health and Human Services has the authority to close failing jails but it never has.

“DRNC’s investigation uncovered facilities that were allowed to operate despite chronic inspection failures and dangerous conditions, sometimes with deadly consequences,” says the report, based on inspection reports from 2017 to 2019.

The state DHHS inspects jails twice a year for compliance with state regulations. Jails are also required to report all inmate deaths to DHHS. In most cases the department will investigate to see if jail supervision and safety regulations were followed.

Investigation findings

Disability Rights’ report found:

▪ 41 of the 109 jails in the state, or more than a third, failed every inspection during the three-year period and only 15 jails passed every inspection. More than half of the 600 inspection reports reviewed for all the jails showed at least one violation.

▪ DHHS repeatedly cited jails for the same violation, including after inmate death investigations. But DHHS took no punitive action. County sheriffs would respond with written plans of correction that DHHS accepted 99% of the time, despite jails having “chronic safety issues that were not corrected.”

▪ The vast majority of inspection failures were over construction and/or sanitation issues, but nearly 40 percent were for supervision issues and nearly 30 percent involved overcrowding. One in five failures stemmed from fire risks such as the lack of quarterly drills or improper storage of combustible materials.

▪ DHHS learned that the Ashe County jail was falsifying reports to disguise supervision and fire safety problems. “Despite these findings, no action was taken to close the jail or hold jail staff or the sheriff accountable,” the report said.

“Taken as a whole, statewide data shows the dire need for increased and effective regulation of local jails,” the Disability Rights report said.

A spokeswoman for DHHS said officials there had received the report Wednesday afternoon and needed time to review it.

A troubling increase in deaths

The findings bolster previous ones by the nonprofit, which advocates for people with mental and physical disabilities, and reporting by The News & Observer into jail deaths that began in 2017 with its Jailed to Death series.

Inmate deaths in North Carolina jails have climbed year after year since 2016. In 2021, 67 inmates died in jails or in hospitals after becoming infirm in jail. That’s a 40 percent increase from 2020.

Supervision failures were again tied to a significant number of deaths. DHHS jail inspectors found more than half of the deaths in 2021 exposed supervision failures, including the death of Tyquan Easton, 29, a Guilford County inmate who died in his cell Nov. 1 from blunt force trauma to his torso.

When detention officers don’t check on inmates at least twice an hour as regulations require, they are more likely to succeed in killing themselves or others, experts say. In 2019, two inmates died in county jails after being attacked by fellow inmates, according to law enforcement reports. In both case, detention officers weren’t making required checks, DHHS investigations found.

In 2020, Maurice King, 34, an inmate who had been assaulted in the Orange County jail and later died, hadn’t been checked on for roughly 90 as security cameras showed detention officers walked by his cell without looking inside.

Sheriffs have resisted increased oversight, and state lawmakers have only passed modest reforms in recent years.

Sheriffs can alleviate overcrowding by sending inmates to jails in other counties that have available beds, the Disability Rights NC report said. But they would have to pay the other county for the housing costs, a disincentive that encourages overcrowding. They also receive money from the state to house inmates convicted of misdemeanors that otherwise would be taking up beds in a state prison.

In 2020, the state legislature let new rules take effect that tightened supervision and screening of inmates despite the North Carolina Sheriffs Association’s opposition. This year, the association won a provision in the budget law that gave sheriffs the right to appeal violations to the Office of Administrative Courts, a process that could create months-long delays to correcting serious problems.

What can be done?

Three reforms would help make the jails safer, said Luke Woollard, an attorney for Disability Rights NC who wrote the report.

▪ DHHS needs more teeth to go after noncompliant jails. That includes fines for serious violations that would continue to rack up until they were fixed would put pressure on sheriffs and county officials who fund sheriff’s budgets to act fast.

▪ DHHS needs at least two more jail inspectors. It currently has three to inspect all jails twice a year and investigate deaths. Proposed legislation in 2021 that would have provided more positions died in the NC General Assembly.

▪ DHHS should post all jail inspections and death investigations on its website so the public can see what is happening inside their local jails.

Of the three, Woollard said the most critical was the first. The only stick DHHS has to force compliance now is the threat of closing a jail.

“The only option is closure, which is a nuclear option that isn’t very practical,” he said.