![]() “Cruel and Unusual” Punishment No LimitsĮach year, the Kern County Sheriff’s Office sends hundreds of people into this kind of suicide watch isolation. She pressed her eyelids shut but couldn’t block the glare or the rush of tears. To shield herself, she crawled under the bed and put the yoga mat over her torso like a blanket. And, as Taylor soon learned, jail staff never turned them off. Hazy fluorescent lights reflected off the ash-white paint. The floors felt colder inside, and a mold smell came up from the toilet-sink fixture. They handed her just two items: paper-thin clothes that come apart under pressure and a blue yoga mat.Įxhausted and scared, she followed orders, walked down a hall and stepped into a bathroom-sized isolation cell. Within minutes, deputies moved Taylor into a changing room on the third floor and had her strip naked. Text the Crisis Text Line from anywhere in the U.S. If you or someone you know needs help, here are a few resources:Ĭall the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-80 ![]() Her answer got her a glimpse of how the jail handles people it perceives as suicide risks. “Do you think I’m going to try to kill myself with my shirt?” Taylor responded, flippantly. She had never been in serious trouble with law enforcement, and she considered her arrest that night a gross misunderstanding. Have you ever attempted suicide, a deputy asked. The sound of other people would soon become a luxury.Įarlier, she had argued with jail staff during her booking at the downtown jail. Jail staff had assigned Taylor to something called “suicide watch,” a block of single cells where she’d be alone 24 hours a day. It was minutes before daybreak on a Monday morning in May 2017 as the elevator lifted her toward the voices. ![]() She heard groans and cries from among the hundred people locked above, a wail echoing through the shaft. Shackled at the wrists and ankles, Christine Taylor followed a red line on the basement floor directing her to the elevator at Kern County’s central jail. ![]() Sign up for the Overcorrection newsletter to receive updates in this series as soon as they publish.īAKERSFIELD, Calif. This story is part of an ongoing investigation into the crisis in California’s jails. ![]()
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