Plagued with staffing shortages and an inexcusably high death rate in jails, Maricopa County may use wristband monitors to save lives.
Abe KwokArizona Republic
Sheriff Russ Skinner staked his longtime law enforcement career to win the office he was temporarily named to and failed, getting unexpectedly knocked out in the July 30 Democratic primary.
Aside from finishing the job his former boss, Paul Penzone, tried to do — getting the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office out from under a court monitor’s oversight — his biggest challenge has been to reduce the nagging high number of deaths in recent years inside county jails.
An effort to tackle the latter will get started in earnest after the winner of the Nov. 5 general election succeeds him, but Skinner has gotten the ball rolling.
Skinner’s team is exploring Fitbit-like wrist-worn devices that would track inmates’ vitals and alert authorities to someone having a health emergency.
And in Maricopa County jails, that has been happening with great frequency.
Jail death rate is disturbingly high
More troublesome, those emergencies ending in death have been disturbingly high.
As Arizona Republic reporter Jimmy Jenkins reported earlier this month, over the last five years, fatalities in Maricopa County jails jumped even as the average daily population has declined. The rate of death is more than four times higher than the national average.
In 2019, there were 11 deaths in the jails. That number rose to 43 people in both 2022 and 2023.
Skinner and county officials note that they are dealing with more people who have an opioids dependency, sometimes in conjunction with methamphetamines. They also handle more people who have been in stifling heat during the summer, placing their bodies under greater distress.
Monitoring wristbands set to thresholds for particular heart rate, oxygen level and body temperature readings would theoretically provide an automated way of detection that a visual checkup couldn’t do.
It could be particularly useful given the jails’ persistent staffing shortages.
Wristband monitors could help save lives
A number of agencies running jails and prisons have begun experimenting with health-monitoring wristbands, some of them for the same reasons as MCSO: In-custody deaths from suicides, overdoses and other health problems.
Jail systems in Bernalillo County, New Mexico — home to Albuquerque, the state’s most populous city — and in some Georgia counties have launched similar efforts.
The Avondale Police Department, about 20 miles west of central Phoenix, launched a monitoring wrist bracelet program last summer and has been issuing one to every person booked into its jail. The department reported big satisfaction with the results it has seen.
Officer Daniel Benavidez credited the device with saving at least one inmate last year. Authorities were alerted when the man’s heart rate dipped; by the time detention staff got to him, he was not responsive or breathing.
Staff started CPR and revived the inmate before transporting him to a hospital.
Results have been a mixed bag elsewhere
That said, Avondale processed all of 3,500 or so people into its jails last year. Maricopa County’s daily jail population in 2023 was more than 6,500 people.
And while vendors boast nothing but benefits, the results have been a mixed bag.
The Fulton County Sheriff’s Office in Atlanta agreed to a deal in 2023 with a Georgia firm called to track inmates with electronic wristbands, but Fulton County commissioners nixed the deal months later.
Fewer than 50 inmates were outfitted with the devices, far short of the 500 that were promised for $2.1 million in tax dollars.
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There’s also emerging pushback from civil libertarians who believe the devices — which can be programmed to detect overexertion such as running or fighting and can track inmate whereabouts to within a meter or two — amount to unwarranted surveillance.
A Florida Department of Corrections requirement that inmates wear electronic bracelets recently raised concerns from advocates and family members that their heart beats are being monitored for drug use and that refusal to wear the device is resulting in punishment.
Maricopa County sheriff is on the right track
Skinner has a far more narrow population in mind — those who have substance dependency, mental health issues or who are at risk of suicide, or have a concerning medical condition. They are already being identified through a health assessment upon entering the jail system.
The monitoring wristbands, the sheriff figures, would give Maricopa County jail staff a fighting chance to intervene on medical emergencies and suicide attempts.
The county is drafting a request of information from potential vendors.
The program is one that Skinner won’t likely see to fruition, even if the process and county supervisors approval are expedited.
But it holds promise to reverse the trend of jail inmates dying in alarming rates. For that, Skinner should be lauded for seeding the efforts.
Reach Abe Kwok atakwok@azcentral.com. On X, formerly Twitter:@abekwok.
