Why jail deaths matter

Sue Carlton, Tampa Bay Times Columnist

There was plenty to raise eyebrows in the recent Tampa Bay Times investigation about people who die in the custody of the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office and its jails.

Such as: How many?

And: What happened?

As the Times' Anastasia Dawson reported, a Sheriff's Office spokesman said earlier this year six inmates died in custody in the last three years.

But it turns out there were 13 deaths since 2016 in the Sheriff's Office's own records.

Six more were found through autopsies at the Hills-borough County Medical Examiner's Office.

And for the record, at least 42 have died in Hillsborough jails in the past decade.

Now we can probably all agree that deaths of people in custody are important enough to be precisely counted and thoroughly explained. We're talking about the responsibility of housing a pretty vulnerable population here, even if not everyone finds them particularly sympathetic.

So why the squishy-sounding numbers?

The Times' investigation chronicled friends and family of 10 of the dead who talked about how they felt jail personnel badly handled informing them. Some said they couldn't get answers.

"We had to get an attorney to get any information at all," said Cheryl Leonard, whose brother Zarah Jackson died after he was taken to Tampa General Hospital from the Falkenburg Road Jail.

And why?

Let's start with this: It's no surprise there are inmate deaths. We're talking about people who end up in jail sometimes troubled in a myriad of ways, including mental and physical health issues. Col. Michael Perotti pointed out that the county spends $23 million a year on inmate medical expenses, often on people who have not had particularly good health care.

Obviously, there is immense power and responsibility in running jails and prisons. And public disclosure about in-custody deaths is a way to track patterns, problems and potential abuse.

It's also how you keep the system honest.

And the other side is this: Facts can be a cleanser when there is murkiness and suspicion -- the same way police body cameras sometimes actually exonerate officers wrongly accused of brutality.

This week at the Sheriff's Office, they were talking change.

Sheriff Chad Chronister said in-custody deaths have always been detailed and counted, but the tallies were kept by different jail personnel. "We know the number," he said, "we just don't have one place to go look." There was also a question of categories: If an inmate with late-stage cancer was released to hospice or to spend his final days with family, is that an in-custody death?

What about Zarah Jackson, who clung to life at Tampa General Hospital for more than two weeks before he died?

Sheriff's officials are promising a centralized database and very broad inclusion for what constitutes dying in custody. With each death will come a news release including a name, circumstances and cause, they said. Sheriff's officials also acknowledged the need to communicate better with inmates' families and said that only a high-ranking jail commander will handle that important task.

"I'm committed to being transparent," Chronister said.

Good to hear, even in jail. Or maybe especially there.