Santa Barbara County officials say they’ve reached a settlement in a long running legal dispute over conditions at the main County Jail. The class action lawsuit was filed by a military veteran suffering from PTSD. It claimed he didn’t receive needed mental health care, and was housed without proper accommodations for his disabilities.
The negotiated deal calls for the jail to improve mental health services, adding more out of cell and recreation time for inmates, and physical changes to the facility to better accommodate those with disabilities.
Some of the changes have already been implemented or are in the process of being made. The Main Jail facility is more than a half century old, and has faced aging infrastructure and overcrowding issues for years. The county is also close to opening a new state of the art jail complex in Santa Maria.
