Suicide in a California jail or prison: what families can do after a death in custody

If your son, daughter, husband, wife, parent or sibling died by suicide in a California jail or prison, we are deeply sorry. Many families are told very little. A suicide in jail is a wrongful death question when the people responsible for that person's safety did not do what the law requires of them. A jail suicide lawsuit in California asks whether screening, housing, safety checks and medical care were done the way they should have been.

This guide covers what public records show, the rules jails must follow, who can be held responsible, what families have recovered, and the deadlines. It is general information, not legal advice. If you are grieving and struggling, you do not have to carry it alone: if you are struggling, call or text 988, the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, any time of day.

How often do people die by suicide in California jails and prisons?

State prisons (CDCR)	2021: 15 · 2022: 20 · 2023: 30 (CDCR suicide report). 2024: 29 (prison health system mortality review)
Los Angeles County jails	2023: 3 · 2024: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2026 through Sept. 21: 2 (Sheriff's Department death disclosures)
San Diego County jails	52 suicides from 2006 to 2020 (State Auditor, 2022). Zero in 2024, according to the Sheriff
Kern County jails	6 of 10 deaths in 2023 were suicides, the "highest on record" (KBAK, November 2023)
Orange County jails	2022: 2 · 2023: 1 · 2024: 1 (Office of Independent Review)

Suicide was the second-leading cause of death in California county jails after natural causes, CalMatters reported in March 2024. Jail deaths statewide reached a record 215 in 2022. In Tulare County, four of the jail's eight deaths in 2022 were suicides, and CalMatters later described how staggered checks and closer attention to people at risk helped staff prevent five suicides in the months that followed.

In the state prisons, the 30 suicides in 2023 meant a rate of 31.2 per 100,000 people, the highest since the department began tracking rates in 1990, according to CDCR's 2023 annual suicide report. Of those 30 people, 19 were in the prison mental health program. The prison system's 2024 mortality review counted 29 suicides in 2024.

In Los Angeles County, suicides in the jails rose from 3 in each of 2023 and 2024 to 8 in 2025, according to the Sheriff's Department's own death disclosures. In San Diego County, the State Auditor found 52 suicides from 2006 to 2020, more than twice the number in Alameda (22), Orange (14) or Riverside (23), and the highest suicide rate of those counties after adjusting for population. The Sheriff later reported zero jail suicides in 2024, the first such year in more than two decades, Times of San Diego reported. These deaths are not inevitable.

What the law requires jails to do for people at risk

California's Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC) sets minimum standards for county jails in Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations. Two rules matter most in a suicide case:

• A written suicide prevention program. Under 15 CCR § 1030, every jail must screen each person for suicide risk at intake, before they are assigned housing. The program must also include yearly training, sharing of risk information among officers, court and health staff, supervision matched to the level of risk, and a review after every suicide or attempt.
• Safety checks. Under 15 CCR § 1027.5, staff must check every person at least hourly by direct visual observation, with no more than 60 minutes between checks. Checks must be at random times, logged and reviewed by a supervisor, and more frequent for people in safety cells, sobering cells or restraints.

State prisons are under long-running federal court oversight of mental health care. A court expert reported in March 2024 that the prison system was falling short on 14 of 15 suicide prevention safeguards, including checks on people at risk every 30 minutes, KFF Health News reported. The federal judge had ordered fines of $1,000 a day for each unmet safeguard at each prison starting in April 2023.

What usually goes wrong

Official reviews and lawsuits point to the same failures:

• Weak intake screening. The State Auditor found that in San Diego, nurses who "do not necessarily specialize in mental health" did the mental health screening at intake.
• Warnings not passed on. Families, officers or court staff often know about a person's mental illness or past attempts, but lawsuits allege the information never reached the people making housing decisions.
• Taken off watch too soon, or never placed on it, despite clear risk.
• Missed, rushed or falsified safety checks. The Auditor found San Diego staff sometimes spent "no more than one second" glancing into cells, and that neither the Sheriff's policy nor the BSCC standard required staff to confirm that the person was alive. The Attorney General's 2025 lawsuit against Los Angeles County alleges that at least 11 jail deaths from 2018 to 2024 involved untimely, missed or inadequate safety checks.
• Medication stopped and slow emergency response. The Auditor also found that CPR was sometimes delayed or not started.

CDCR's 2023 report notes that five of the 30 people who died by suicide that year had been in prison less than a year.

Who can be held responsible?

• The county and its sheriff's department, for a county jail. Under federal civil-rights law, a county can be liable for its own policies, customs or failure to train, for example a practice of skipping checks or letting untrained staff screen for suicide risk.
• A contracted medical company. Many counties use private contractors such as Wellpath (formerly California Forensic Medical Group), which paid part of several settlements below.
• Individual deputies, officers, nurses and doctors who ignored a clear risk.
• The State of California and CDCR staff, for a state prison. See our guide to deaths in California state prisons.

For someone held before trial, the federal claim arises under the Fourteenth Amendment, and in California's federal courts the question is generally whether staff acted reasonably in the face of an obvious risk, not what they privately believed. The federal appeals court for California has also said that people held before trial have a right to safety checks close enough to tell whether they need medical help. For a sentenced prisoner, the Eighth Amendment requires showing deliberate indifference, which generally means the official knew of the risk and disregarded it.

California law generally shields public entities from liability for injuries to people in custody, with exceptions. One is Government Code § 845.6: an employee, and the public entity, can be liable when the employee knew or had reason to know the person needed immediate medical care and did not take reasonable action to summon it. Courts read it narrowly.

Recent settlements and verdicts

These are reported settlements in California jail suicide cases that families brought as public lawsuits. Other law firms handled them. The descriptions are the families' allegations, and settlements are not admissions of fault.

Every case is different. Past results, including those listed here, do not predict the outcome of any other case. See more reported results on our jail death settlements and verdicts page.

Deadlines for a suicide in custody claim

State-law claims against a county, city or the State, including wrongful death, negligence and the § 845.6 claim, require a written government claim within six months of the death (Government Code § 911.2). For a county jail, the claim goes to that county. For a state prison, it goes to the Department of General Services' Government Claims Program. If the claim is rejected in writing, you generally have six months from that notice to sue. Late-claim relief is narrow, so families lose state claims by waiting. Our guide to the six-month government claim deadline explains each step.

Federal civil-rights claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 do not require a government claim and generally must be filed within two years. Claims against a private medical contractor are not subject to the six-month rule but generally must be filed within two years for wrongful death. Because the county or State is almost always part of the case, the six-month clock still controls.

The person's estate can bring a survival claim, and federal courts in California have allowed the estate to recover for the person's own suffering in some cases. A spouse, children and, in some circumstances, parents or others who depended on the person can bring a wrongful death claim.

What to do in the first weeks

1. Ask for the coroner's or medical examiner's report. Our guide to getting autopsy records and jail video explains how.
2. Check the jail's public death posting. California requires in-custody deaths to be reported to the state Department of Justice, and many sheriffs post them online.
3. Write down past attempts, diagnoses, medications and any warning given to police, the court or the jail, with dates and names. Keep letters, voicemails, messages and social media posts.
4. Do not sign anything from the county, a medical contractor or an insurer before speaking with a lawyer.
5. Talk to a lawyer well before the six-month mark. We send preservation letters right away for housing-unit video, safety-check logs, intake screening forms, mental health and medication records, and radio and call-button logs.
6. For deaths in county jails after July 2024, the BSCC's In-Custody Death Review Division, created by SB 519, reviews the local investigation. Its recommendations and the sheriff's response, due within 90 days, are public.

How LaCour Trial Lawyers handles these cases

LaCour Trial Lawyers is a Pasadena-based trial firm that handles police misconduct and wrongful death in custody cases throughout California. A partner leads every case, we have Spanish-speaking lawyers and staff, and there is no fee unless there is a recovery. For local details, see our guides to deaths at Twin Towers, the Los Angeles County mental health jail and San Diego County jail deaths. You can request a free, confidential review.

Frequently asked questions

This guide is general information about California and federal law and about public records as of its date. It is not legal advice, and reading it or contacting us does not create an attorney–client relationship. Allegations in lawsuits are claims, not findings. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Attorney advertising.