They didn’t get exactly what they want, but critics of how the Broward Sheriff’s Office has handled safety in the county’s jails may have gotten the next best thing — a serious dialogue with the man in charge of keeping inmates safe.
Last month, the NAACP demanded an investigation of Broward jails by the U.S. Justice Department, citing 21 inmate deaths over the past four years, along with a handful of serious incidents involving unattended jail births, assaults and self-mutilations. The problems appeared to be concentrated on inmates with mental health needs, an issue that the Broward Public Defender’s Office has been raising for years.
Inmates at Broward’s four jails are, for the most part, not convicts. Most are awaiting trial and either have been denied bail or cannot afford it. Some are serving sentences of under one year after being convicted of a misdemeanor.
The Justice Department has not responded to the concerns raised by the NAACP and the Broward Public Defender’s Office, but Broward Sheriff Gregory Tony has, said Public Defender Gordon Weekes.
“I can say that we have had ongoing conversations to improve conditions for the mentally ill,” Weekes said. Based on those conversations, Weekes said he expects to see improvements in the inmates’ access to their lawyers, which could improve their conditions by giving them a chance to talk to someone on the outside who can advocate for their needs.
“Communication is a necessary step for progress,” said Weekes, crediting the sheriff with taking his concerns seriously.
But other issues remain unresolved. At a news conference earlier this month, family members of inmates who died in custody complained that they have not been given access to critical information about their cases, including jail video.
Among them were the families of Janard Geffrard, 29, who was beaten to death in the Broward Main Jail by a man who was awaiting trial on a vehicle theft charge and probation violations, and Alvin Stephen Modeste, 43, who hanged himself in his cell at the North Broward Jail in Pompano Beach on Dec. 26, less than a month after a Broward judge ordered him to receive evaluation under the state’s Baker Act.
“I want to know what happened to my son,” Jeff Geffrard said of Janard.
The concerns of those families, among others, remain open, Weekes said.
A federal judge ended most monitoring of Broward County jails in 2017, leaving only inmate mental health issues under the court’s continued review. In her most recent review of jail conditions on behalf of the federal court system, dated Jan. 9, mental health expert Kathryn Burns found the Sheriff’s Office to be in compliance with the terms of its agreement with overseers.
But she found several issues dealing with mental health that continue to need addressing.
“There is no policy or procedure that provides clear information about when an inmate should be transferred to (residential housing units) … or what behaviors are required to be discharged to the population,” she wrote.
The report did not address recent complaints and there is no indication that fully addressing the concerns she raised would have averted any jail deaths.
The Sheriff’s Office has continually asked county government for additional funding to better address the mental health needs of the inmate population.
“No one believes that jail is the most appropriate setting to treat those experiencing mental illness,” Sheriff Tony wrote to county officials in 2022. “Unfortunately, it [the jail] has been and remains the primary mental health provider in our community.”
Rafael Olmeda can be reached at rolmeda@sunsentinel.com or 954-356-4457.