Inmate death rate drops 30% in state prisons

The death rate of California prison inmates has dropped almost 30% since the beginning of 2006, a court-appointed monitor reported today.

J. Clark Kelso, the court-appointed receiver for inmate medical care, said the drop was an indication that his office is succeeding in reducing the number of preventable deaths in state prisons due to inadequate access to care, poor quality treatment and other factors.

In a report to U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, who is overseeing an inmate lawsuit, Kelso said about 204 inmates per 100,000 died in state prisons in the second quarter of 2008. That was down from about 291 deaths in the first quarter of 2006. Kelso did not say how many he thought could have been prevented.

The total number of inmate deaths declined from 428 in 2006 to 397 last year, according to Kelso’s office. So far, 186 inmates have died in custody in 2008.

Kelso noted that the reduction might be seized upon by state officials “who allowed horrific prison conditions to fester” as evidence that his office is no longer needed. Likewise, he said, his efforts to obtain $8 billion in state funding for construction of medical facilities, which have so far been blocked by Republican lawmakers, would also be derided as unnecessary.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Kelso wrote. The death reduction demonstrates only “preliminary results, not that the work is complete.”

— Michael Rothfeld