Reality Check it is a Bee series hold employees and organizations accountable and shine a light on their decisions. Have a tip? Email realitycheck@sacbee.com.
Documents show that 1,935 people incarcerated in Sacramento County jails were deemed too poor to purchase basic toiletries, such as soap and toothpaste, from the jail commissary and were given the green light to go into debt by purchasing “indigent kits” of 4,000. 41 dollars to stay clean behind bars.
The Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office does not provide these basic hygiene items to individuals living in its two jails on an ongoing basis.
One of the documents released to The Sacramento Bee in response to a California Public Records Act request tallies the total debt. This document shows that as of December 31, 2023, 343 people collectively owe the prison $12,651.11 for indigent kits. A 32-page document listing the names of people considered indigent is mostly redacted, but it says “Name” on the first page, and on the final page it says “1935 Incarcerated Persons Qualified (sic) for Indigent Kit as of 12/31 . 23.”
During the five weeks between November 26, 2023 and December 29, 2023, 577 kits were ordered.
In December, data presented to the California Board of State and Community Corrections shows the combined average daily population of the county’s two jails. it was around 3,000 people in December 2023. The prison population fluctuates based on new releases and arrests and, to a lesser extent, deaths in custody.
Sacramento County Basic Hygiene Kit for Poor People in Jail
Several people appear to have ordered the kits more than a year ago. One person owed $364.60 at the end of 2023 — more than 82 weeks worth of kits at the price listed by the sheriff’s office last August.
See How Many Individuals Owed the Sacramento County Jail for Soap and Toothpaste
Those who order the kits “are not as well-off or don’t come in with bank accounts on the outside,” said Kari Hamilton, an organizer with Decarcerate Sacramento who was incarcerated in the Sacramento County Jail from 2014 to 2017. Many of the people who qualify to receive indigent kits, she said, are homeless.
A study of May 2022 arrests found that “30% of people released from prison are possibly homeless.” And previous reports suggest that some people are likely in prison because they are homeless: The Bee found that local authorities may arrest people in connection with citations issued for being homeless in public. Homeless people with serious mental illnesses, the prison study found, make up a large portion of those with “repeat bookings.”
Hamilton observed the same thing. “A lot of people who are homeless are leaving, they’re coming back, they’re leaving, they’re coming back,” she said. She said that when people return to prison with money on their person, that money is taken from them and applied to whatever debt they accrued the last time they were incarcerated. A spokesperson for the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment on the matter, nor to questions about the indigent kits for this story.
In an August 2023 call for bids from the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, the law enforcement agency has outlined its policy: “Inmates who have a balance less than the cost of the indigent kit (currently $4.41) in their trust account and have not purchased a commissary during the previous week are considered indigent. Indigent kits can be ordered by indigent inmates once a week and the value of the kit is subtracted from the inmate’s trust account, even if doing so results in a negative trust account balance.”
The notice describes the kit’s contents: Eight sheets of standard paper; four sealed envelopes; a golf pencil; a half-ounce roll-on deodorant; two 0.28-ounce tubes of toothpaste; 0.34 oz shampoo/body wash; and a toothbrush.
“You’re in a cell,” Hamilton said. “You don’t really get a chance to wash your body much. That little liquid soap thing – it wasn’t enough.
A standard Old Spice roll-on deodorant costs 3.25 ounces, which is six and a half times the amount given to people in prison. A tube of travel toothpaste weighs 0.85 ounces, which is about a third of an ounce more than the amount given to people in prison. Travel shampoos and conditioners are usually around 3.4 ounces.
Millions for ‘inmate welfare’ not used for soap
Danica Rodarmel, a criminal justice lawyer and lobbyist who runs Whole Consulting, said the debt was “infuriating” and inhumane. “Yes, you have poor people in your prison and they need soap,” she said. “You’re going to need to pay for this.”
The simple fact that there were hundreds of people in prison who couldn’t afford $4.41 for hygiene needs, Rodarmel said, was an indictment of social services.
“Instead of investing significantly in the types of supportive services and housing we know we need for people in our community who need things they can’t afford,” she said, “we have been overly reliant on law enforcement and the incarceration of a very unsuccessful way. try – I don’t even want to say ‘solve these problems’ – but try to get them out of sight.”
She said it was “horrible” that the sheriff’s office didn’t use its inmate welfare fund to purchase hygiene items. “They are putting poor people in debt for indigent kits, while at the same time having a multi-million dollar balance sitting in their inmate welfare fund, unused,” she said.
The sheriff’s office informed the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors in December that at the end of the last fiscal year the fund had a balance of $16,116,917.
