Six people have died in the Leon County Detention Facility so far in 2024. That’s a lot for Leon County, but it’s consistent with the increases in jail deaths across the country.
Deaths that occur in Leon’s detention facility must all be investigated, and these were. One man died of a stroke. A woman died of what’s described as blood intoxication. An inflamed stomach lining claimed the life of one man, and another death was heart-related. The causes of the two remaining deaths have been redacted in the public records, but a jail official says one man was found hanging in his cell, with no one else there.
“We also have had several die of natural causes, as determined by the medical examiner.”
Undersheriff Ron Cave says people who come to the jail often haven’t had much access to health care before they arrive, or they have pre-existing health conditions.
“And then we’ve had some instances where people have ingested drugs into their system, unfortunately, just prior to being arrested,” Cave said.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics did a national study from 2000 to 2019 and found that in 2019, the local jail mortality rate was up 11 percent from 2000.
The Florida Sheriffs Association’s Cory Godwin is seeing the increase, too.
“That’s been an ongoing trend for decades now, that those with behavioral health issues -- not only behavioral health but substance abuse or addiction disorders -- or more commonly, a dual diagnosis with both, obviously are ending up into our correctional facilities and jails across the nation," said Godwin. "And Florida has certainly not been immune to that.”
Nationally, there were 184 deaths in local jails due to drug or alcohol intoxication in 2019. It was the highest recorded number in the 20 years that the Bureau of Justice Statistics has collected mortality data.
“There are so many people who wind up in prison or jail, in our case at a detention facility, that don’t need to be there," said Leon County Sheriff Walt McNeil. "They are suffering from tremendous mental health issues.”
McNeil says local jails often become the largest treatment centers for mental health issues in their jurisdictions. “That’s not a place we’d like to be," he said. "We’d like to try to address these problems and issues with mental health long before they get to our detention facility. But that’s difficult to do.”
Undersheriff Cave says the detention facility generally maintains an average daily population of about 1,000. Of those, roughly 65 percent have a mental health issue. Some 40 to 50 percent are receiving psychotropic medications at any given time.
“Those numbers are obviously alarming to us -- and so many people don’t realize that," Cave said. "But we truly have the largest mental health facility in our area.”
The Florida Sheriffs Association’s Godwin notes that the increase in mental health issues in jails and prisons often reflects what’s happening in communities.
“On the issue of behavioral health and substance abuse, I don’t know anyone that I’ve met in the last 20 years that doesn’t have at least one degree of separation from those issues," said Godwin. "In their family or they know someone, friend or family, that has gone down that path. And there are some great success stories out there, but there are also some tragedies.”
McNeil says he’s trying to reach people with mental health issues before they land behind bars. The sheriff’s office has three teams that include a deputy and a counselor, and those teams responded to 363 mental health-related calls in the first quarter of 2024.
They’ve also taken steps to prevent suicides. Cave says they’ve substituted high-tech materials for sheets and blankets that could be used for hangings….and welded holes shut to prevent their being used for leverage in such deaths. The department has also consulted with Florida State University, the Apalachee Center, and Dr. Lisa Boesky, a suicide mitigation expert.
“If persons are going through personal challenges on the outside, that’s obviously going to have an impact internally," Cave said. "So, we’ve created a form now, where at check-on when staff come in, they are advised, ‘Inmate X just got sentenced to three years in prison, ‘We’re going to keep a close watch on him, even if they don’t proactively say anything, we’re going to…”
As to the recent deaths, Cave says inmates with health issues already have medical care on-site. In the last year, the facility has created a behavioral health unit. They’ve added an advanced registered nurse practitioner who comes in four days a week and a psychiatrist who is there when the nurse is not.
