According to Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes, California doesn’t have a crisis in its jails, where record numbers of people have died even as the state’s jail population shrank.
“Saying people died in jails is a little bit of a misnomer,” said Barnes, who is also the president of the California State Sheriffs’ Association. “People who are dying in our care, and I can’t say this any other way, they’re not dying because they’re in jail. They are dying from things that are life choices, narcotics issues, poor health, cancer, other things.
“It’s not that the numbers are going up because they’re just dying from issues that are related to the jail.”…