Last year, California enacted the Public Safety Realignment Act to decrease prison overcrowding and to send low-level offenders to county jails instead of prisons. Jails statewide are now experiencing an increase of people, including those with disabilities.

This makes it critical now more than ever for jails to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and state disability rights laws to ensure that county jails have the capability to house people with disabilities without harming them while in custody.     

To address the inhumane conditions and discriminatory treatment that men and women with disabilities face while housed at Santa Rita Jail, DRA filed a lawsuit in November of 2012 on behalf of Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (“LSPC”) and taxpayers Barbara Michel and Laura Magnani. The lawsuit, which seeks no monetary damages, aims to compel Alameda County to stop using taxpayer funds to further the illegal and discriminatory conditions that exist at Santa Rita Jail. 

The lawsuit alleges that the jail’s inhumane conditions and discriminatory treatment of people with disabilities denies this population access to basic human necessities, such as toilets and showers and denies them access to educational and rehabilitation programs that can reduce their jail sentences.