Sedgwick County Jail checking on inmates less than before

A change in Sedgwick County Jail policy allows deputies to check on maximum-security inmates less frequently than in past years, and it has become an issue in the recent death of an inmate found in a cell stained with his bloody footprints.

The current interval between rounds in maximum-security areas “is way too long” and less frequent than in other states, a national expert says. Jails have a legal obligation to check on inmates in their custody, experts say.

The interval between rounds has increased because of low staffing levels, Sheriff Jeff Easter said Friday.

Because of the chronic staffing problem, the jail is continuing to rely on overtime, paying increasing amounts over the years: $1.2 million in 2012; nearly $1.3 million in 2013; almost $1.6 million in 2014; and almost $1.4 million through 20 of 26 payroll postings this year, according to Sheriff’s Office figures.

Easter wouldn’t comment on the expert’s contention that the time between checks is excessive.

The interval between rounds has become an issue for the family of a 55-year-old Wichita man, Pradith Phousomthee, who ran Thai Lao Cafe on South Hillside with his wife before he died in the jail Oct. 4.

John Dischert, Phousomthee’s father-in-law, said in an e-mail Friday that it appears his son-in-law was not checked on from the time he received his evening meal until he was found unresponsive in his cell about 11 p.m.

“I believe more frequent rounds might have saved him,” Dischert said.

Easter said the matter is part of an internal review.

Before Phousomthee died in his one-man cell, he left a bloody sheet tied to his desk, bloody footprints on the desk and blood near his cell door, where he might have been trying to alert someone, sheriff’s Capt. Greg Pollock told Dischert in a phone call Dischert recorded on Oct. 23. Other inmates heard Phousomthee banging on his door, and a deputy working in the area reported the noise, Pollock told Dischert.

The investigation has concluded that Phousomthee died from a fall that broke a spinal bone at the base of his skull. The blood apparently came from a superficial head wound 2 to 3 inches long.

Phousomthee was in jail for five days, arrested on a probation-violation warrant, when he was found on his cell floor. Dischert said his son-in-law was a chronic drinker and suffered from liver disease and mental health issues.

Policy changed

The policy on what are referred to as “physical rounds,” where a deputy has to look close enough to make sure an inmate is OK, has changed, according to documents the Sheriff’s Office provided to The Eagle.

Two previous jail policies, in effect from June 2013 to June 24, 2015, called for checks every 30 minutes.

The current policy, in effect since June 25, says rounds should be “reasonably spaced throughout the shift” and not more than two hours apart in maximum-security areas like the one where Phousomthee was being held with about 40 other inmates.

To make rounds more often in the higher-security pods is “virtually impossible,” Easter has said. It’s difficult to get a second deputy, called a rover, to the pod so that one deputy can staff the control station while the other goes into the inmates’ areas to check on them, he said. In maximum-security pods, the deputy staffs a control station where thick glass walls separate the guard from inmates.

If a second deputy is unavailable, a supervisor is supposed to be contacted. The policy also notes that “Visual checks may substitute a physical round only when a rover is unavailable.”

A former jail deputy said visual checks are where a deputy looks into open areas where inmates gather; the deputy doesn’t go to each cell and look in.

In lower-security pods, where deputies are stationed among the inmates, the current policy continues to dictate more frequent checks – every 30 minutes, or four times as often as in the maximum-security units.

But the interval should be every 30 minutes regardless of whether inmates are in higher-security or lower-security pods, said Ken Kerle, managing editor with the American Jail Association from 1986 to 2009. Kerle, who lives in Topeka, said he has toured or inspected 828 jails in 48 states; he wrote a book entitled “Exploring Jail Operations” and has consulted for the National Sheriffs’ Association.

Referring to the current Sedgwick County policy of rounds being done not more than two hours apart, Kerle said, “That is not enough, as far as I’m concerned. You should be checking those pods every half hour.”

Frequency is important, he said, because it could help prevent a suicide.

Under Kansas law, “jailers owe a duty of reasonable care to those in custody, including the duty to take reasonable steps to prevent prisoners from harming themselves,” said Larry Wall, a Wichita lawyer who has been involved in lawsuits over inmate deaths.

Sheriff’s officials had initially told the family that Phousomthee’s death could have been a suicide. The bloody bed sheet tied to the desk was the only indicator of a possible suicide, Pollock told Dischert. Dischert said the family doesn’t think Phousomthee committed suicide.

Although Pollock told Dischert that Phousomthee’s injury “eventually led to his death,” Easter told The Eagle that Phousomthee’s death was almost instant and that the outcome wouldn’t have mattered even if a deputy had seen it happen.

Nearby inmates heard a “boing” sound, consistent with someone one falling or jumping off a desk, Pollock told Dischert.

Staffing shortages

Most jails across the country seem to require checks closer to every 30 minutes, and up to two hours between rounds is “way too long,” Kerle said.

“But since it’s up to each county, they can pretty much do whatever they want” in Kansas, he said.

Usually, the biggest problem for jails – something that can affect how often rounds are done – is lack of personnel, Kerle said.

About a week before Phousomthee’s death, Easter was quoted as saying the jail was “really hurting for” deputies and was trying to recruit them. On Oct. 15, Easter said jail staffing was down 67 people; full staffing is about 300.

A new crop of academy graduates was expected to help the situation in the state’s largest jail, which has an average daily inmate population of 1,102. Overtime makes up for the staffing shortage.

The situation has put overtime at its highest level in his three years as sheriff, Easter has said. The jail has had mandatory overtime for deputies for long before he was elected sheriff in 2012, Easter said.

On the date that Phousomthee died, staffing was 47 for the first half of the second shift and 42 for the second half, according to information Easter provided in response to a request from The Eagle under the Kansas Open Records Act.

A former deputy who worked at the jail as late as 2014 said staffing at the time he was there was at least 50 per shift and possibly almost 60 – significantly more than on the night that Phousomthee died.

Around the time that Easter became sheriff in 2013, the practice was that supervisors allowed rounds to be done about once an hour in all pods, and that remained the practice until at least 2014, said the former jail deputy. He asked not to be named because he said speaking out could affect his ability to get another job in law enforcement.

When he was there, he said, deputies had to log their rounds on a computer in the guard’s station. A time stamp noted when a deputy started and ended his rounds.

Easter said the rounds are documented by deputies in daily activity logs; supervisors review the logs at the end of the shift and approve them.

Deputies have been disciplined for not doing checks often enough, Easter said. He said he didn’t have information on how often it happens.

When food is delivered to inmates, that counts as a round because the deputy has to see each inmate, the former deputy said. Pollock, the sheriff’s captain, told Dischert that the last time anyone had contact with Phousomthee was when someone delivered food to him.

No national standard

There is no national standard for checking on jail inmates, and the practice varies from state to state.

Brandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said the minimum standard for general-population jail inmates in Texas is that staff must observe them no less than once every 60 minutes. Inmates being processed into jails who are in holding or “detox” areas and inmates who are potentially suicidal or have shown problematic behavior have to be observed no less than once every 30 minutes, Wood said.

Jail rounds have also become an issue in other states. A Denver sheriff’s deputy was fired last year for multiple violations, including not doing required checks of inmates, according to a DenverPost.com article. The deputy was “fired for failing to notice an inmate hanging himself in a jail cell,” the article said.

The frequency of rounds especially matters with mentally ill inmates, said Kerle, who next month will present a paper about the merger of mental health and criminal justice to the American Society of Criminology in Washington, D.C.

“Urban jails have become the largest mental health hospitals in the United States,” Kerle said.

This story was originally published October 31, 2015 at 4:42 PM with the headline "Sedgwick County Jail checking on inmates less than before."