California Oversight Agency Hasn’t Finished a Single Review of Jail Deaths
In 2024, California created the In-Custody Death Review (ICDR) Division within the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC). The division was intended to scrutinize investigations into jail deaths across the state; with more than 150 people dying in custody in the last year and a half, it seemed to have plenty of cases to look into. But as the Los Angeles Daily News reported, the office has yet to complete a single review.
The main reason for the ICDR’s lack of progress was that it reportedly hasn’t received the necessary records to investigate the jail deaths. Under the terms of ICDR’s creation in a bill signed in October 2023 (SB 519), the office relies on information submitted by counties—and that information, more often than not, lacked detail and most deaths were marked as “pending investigation.” As a spokesperson for the BSCC put it, when the bill was being negotiated, the counties were “clear they would not send nonpublic information” such as a deceased detainee’s medical records.
ICDR’s limitations go beyond its inability to access investigatory materials. Although an earlier draft of SB 519 gave the office additional oversight tools to reign in local sheriff’s departments, the version that became law stripped its role down to reviewing investigations of jails deaths, rather than a death itself. Also, while the ICDR can make recommendations for improvements and find jails “out of compliance,” it lacks an enforcement mechanism for holding a jail’s administrator accountable. If California wants an ICDR that isn’t “clawless,” University of California, Los Angeles assistant professor Nick Shapiro told Los Angeles Daily News, it would need to be able to conduct its own investigations, issue subpoenas, and commission independent autopsies, among other changes.
In late 2025, California did take at least some steps toward improving ICDR by adding language to a trailer bill attached to the 2025-26 state budget. The new measures included granting ICDR unredacted access to investigative records that were previously being withheld. Funding for the office was also doubled to around $4.5 million and the additional money will allow it to hire more staff with medical and behavioral health backgrounds. The first public reports from ICDR are scheduled to be published later this year.
Source: Los Angeles Daily News
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