An inmate in a notorious California jail has gone on hunger strike to protest poor food, lack of medical care and retaliation by jail staff.
Jazz Svarda, 34, was among several inmates who participated in a hunger strike for about two weeks at the Santa Rita Jail, an Alameda County facility with a history of health and safety violations. He ended his protest on Monday, he said, fearing that jail staff would not help him if he faced a health emergency as a result of the strike.
“My health was getting worse too fast,” Svarda said, noting that she now relies on food bought from the commissary instead of eating meals provided by the jail. “I’m afraid if I go too far, they’ll just let me die. But I keep holding them accountable, I keep making complaints. I have not eaten their food yet, because it is traumatizing that there is garbage in the food. I do not trust them.
Svarda began the strike late last month after swallowing a breakfast staple that got stuck in her throat, said Svarda’s friend Hana Sallak, who has been in daily contact with Svarda. “She felt like she was drowning,” she added. She managed to get him out, but she told him that she did not receive proper medical attention after the incident.
“He feels like that was done in retaliation because he’s always asking for license plate numbers and filing complaints,” Sallak said. «What are the chances that a staple is in your food?»
Svarda was booked into the Dublin, California, facility in January for violating the terms of his supervised release after initially being incarcerated. on a federal theft charge, jail records show. His attorney, George Boisseau, said Svarda was sentenced this week to 37 months, including time served. Boisseau declined to comment on the hunger strike.
Jail spokeswoman Lt. Tya Modeste cast doubt on Svarda’s story in an interview. She claimed that medical staff monitored Svarda regularly and recorded a 2-pound weight loss before and after the attack. Modeste said Svarda was found eating food on Monday, the day the strike ended.
“I have a hard time believing that someone who starved for two weeks only lost two pounds. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a hunger strike,” she said. Regarding Svarda’s claims that she swallowed a staple, Modeste said, «I don’t believe anything she says.»
Svarda told KTVU that he and other inmates are urging jail officials to address a number of alleged problems: staff retaliation, delayed or no medical care, moldy bathrooms, poor working conditions and lost mail.
Svarda’s situation follows a series of controversies at the Santa Rita jail. Last week, an inmate whose name has not been released, he died after they found him frantically drinking water and vomiting inside his cell. He marked the fifth reported death in jail this year.
Advocacy groups including Critical Resistance, Restore Oakland and the Care First Community Coalition have demonstrated in front of the jail to protest the number of deaths in custody. TO most deaths have been related to drugs or as a result of exacerbations, and poorly treated mental health problems, advocates said at a protest in April. The jail has seen numerous overdose deaths, including eight in a two-week period in early February. the mercury news informed.
The Care First Community Coalition championed «Care First, Jail Last,» a policy Alameda County adopted in 2021 to expand community services and reduce the number of people with mental health problems and drug dependency incarcerated at the Santa Rita Jail. under the policy, a working group was formed formulate recommendations in accordance with the objectives of the policy. Joy George of Restore Oakland said advocates are still waiting for recommendations.
“About 70 people have died in the Santa Rita jail since 2014, and we are tracking five deaths this year alone,” George said, noting that inmates with mental health or drug problems are especially vulnerable. «Instead of receiving treatment in the community or properly housing them, they are knowingly placed in unsafe conditions that are not suitable for their healing or recovery.»
TO KTVU investigation found that the Santa Rita jail had 13.6 deaths per 1,000 inmates over a five-year period, surpassing the Los Angeles County jail system, the largest in the country, which had 8.9 deaths.
With dozens of prison deaths since 2014the facility has been the subject of numerous lawsuits since at least the mid-1990s. In a report published last year, Alameda County Grand Jury detailed a myriad of problems at the jail, including unsanitary living conditions, poor medical care, poor quality food and a culture of prisoner abuse.
“The presence of feces-stained walls and foul odors in several cells described as available for immediate occupancy suggests to the Grand Jury a systemic problem with the quality of cleanliness and sanitation in temporary occupancy cells,” the grand jury report states. jury.
Seven people died in jail in 2021, according to the report. And Covid devastated the facility, with 20% of prisoners testing positive for the virus at the peak of an unprecedented outbreak in January 2022, according to the report.
“I didn’t feel good about my clients being there,” attorney John Burris said, adding that he is hopeful the new leadership in Oakland, including the mayor and other newly appointed leaders, will bring about positive change. “Many of those death cases could have been handled differently. People would not have died if they had been treated with skill, and recognized their conditions faster, we would not have so many suicides, so many cases of death”, added the lawyer.
Burris has filed several lawsuits against the jail over deaths and other alleged violations, including one for the family of Christian Madrigal, a 20-year-old who died after being booked into jail during a mental health episode. His parents called the police to take Madrigal to a psychiatric center, but they took him to jail. the mercury news informed. Jail staff allegedly left Madrigal alone and soon found him with a chain around his neck in a suicide attempt. He later died at a hospital, according to the Mercury News.
His family sued the county for wrongful death and excessive force, and last year the county agreed to pay the family $5 million. One the sheriff’s lieutenant was fired as a consequence of death.
A year before the grand jury released its report, a investigation by the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. found that the Santa Rita Jail violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by discriminating against inmates with mental health issues, placing them in restrictive housing, and failing to provide them with adequate mental health care. As a result, at least 14 inmates committed suicide between 2015 and 2019, according to the investigation. And two inmates committed suicide in jail within two months of the report’s publication.
modest he told KQED that the sheriff’s office has implemented several initiatives, such as creating a focus group, promoting federal oversight, and working with community groups to create better conditions for people incarcerated at the Santa Rita Jail.
“We send out press releases about every death in our effort to be more transparent than ever,” Modeste told NBC News. “That has been going on under the new administration since January. Any information we can release without jeopardizing an investigation comes out immediately.»
As for Svarda, although she has ended her hunger strike, she will continue to document the mistreatment at the facility, she said.
“There has to be more accountability,” Svarda said. «They’re lying and they’re not holding each other accountable, and I’m going to expose that.»