Media Coverage

As appalling as it sounds today, the practice of sterilizing mentally ill women and men to prevent them from passing on their supposedly defective genes was routine and accepted across the United States in the first half of the 20th century. But nowhere was the eugenics movement, as it was called, more entrenched and aggressively pursued than in California...

Inmates in San Diego County’s jail system commit suicide at much higher rates than inmates in other similarly sized California counties, according to an investigation by Disability Rights California...

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A report released Wednesday by an advocacy agency for the disabled calls on San Diego-area government officials to take urgent action to address a "shocking" suicide rate at local jails.

More than 30 inmates have taken their own lives at area detention centers since 2010, a frequency that "far outpaces other county jail systems in the state" and lays bare a failure of care and support services for the mentally ill, according to the study by Disability Rights California....

SAN DIEGO (KGTV) - A new report is calling for San Diego County jail reforms to address mental health issues and inmate suicides.

From 2014-2016, 17 people have died by suicide while being held in a San Diego County jail facility...

Michelle Moriarty called the Vista jail 31 times, begging the staff to make sure her husband couldn’t harm himself.

Heron Moriarty, a 43-year-old father of three, was booked into jail in late May 2016 after suffering a psychotic breakdown. He’d already been hospitalized twice and had stopped taking his medication...

San Diego County jails continue to face a suicide crisis and there is probable cause people jailed with disabilities are subject to abuse and neglect, according to a three-year investigation by Disability Rights California...

The proposed wage increase comes two years after the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit first exposed that nurses can’t fill hours for disabled and sick children who need medical care at home...

By Jessica Roy

In the days since Stephen Hawking's death, obituaries have described him as being "confined" or "chained" to a wheelchair, as someone who "overcame" his disability and succeeded in spite of it.

None of those things are true. Stephen Hawking had a disability, and Stephen Hawking used a wheelchair. His work was possible because of those things, not in spite of them.

In fact, Hawking — a tireless advocate for disability rights when he wasn't busy unlocking the secrets of the universe — viewed those things as a positive...

Several documents, including medical and mental health care reports on the Santa Barbara County Jail, were filed in court on March 6 as part of a federal class action lawsuit against Santa Barbara County and the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the jail...

By Kelsey Brugger

A criminal justice advocacy group released a damning report last week about medical care for inmates in the Santa Barbara County Jail. The group, Disability Rights California, is suing the county in an attempt to improve medical practices in the jail.

It has been well established that the main jail located off Calle Real is a structural nightmare. The building is a maze, haphazardly renovated multiple times in recent decades. The report describes a restrictive environment for inmates: They are forced to spend most of the time in their cell except for a daily shower and twice-a-week recreation time...