Sacramento County's $1 billion main jail annex plans are insufficient, report says. What we know

Emma Hall, The Sacramento Bee on Feb 24, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A county-contracted peer review of plans for a nearly $1 billion intake and mental health annex at the Sacramento County Main Jail found that suggested improvements are insufficient to address the future needs of the facility.

An external firm, CGL Companies, was hired to review the annex plans and found that the architectural program by Nacht and Lewis the plan does not “consider likely population growth” and “sufficient work, clinical administrative, and treatment programming space for medical/mental health staff,” according to a report dated this month. The plan also does not “allocate sufficient outdoor recreation space” to meet the American Correctional Association’s standards.

The report did find, however, that these plans do meet the current proposed requirements for improvement as set by the Mays Consent Decree, which the county entered in 2019 as part a class action lawsuit filed by incarcerated people which alleged inhumane and unconstitutional conditions at the jail.

“The County’s efforts should be applauded for attempting to fully address and satisfy the Mays Consent Decree,” the report stated. “While it will take longer than the initial six years stipulated in the court order to gain compliance, significant efforts have been made.”

The Sacramento County Board of Supervisors will review the report at its meeting Wednesday.

When the annex project was proposed in 2023, costs were estimated at nearly $1 billion, which supervisors approved with a 3-2 vote. In 2024, the county signed a nearly $600,000 contract with CGL Companies to review the mental health annex, according to past reporting from The Sacramento Bee.

Over the course of two years, the board has been at conflict with approving an annex expansion, expressing concerns about costs.

“There is clearly a need for improved conditions in our jail, improved availability of resources for mental health treatment in our jail system,” said Chair Phil Serna in August. “But, when it’s approaching the numbers that it is at this point, I feel more strongly than I did back in December (2023), that I don’t want to necessarily look back and say that, for different reasons, that I was boxed in, and I had no other choice.”

What does CGL recommend?

The CGL plan recommends the county observe how the jail system can “provide better functionality and improve justice system outcomes rather than focusing narrowly on minimum efforts required for the Main Jail.”

Additionally, the report advises the county to invest in other costs for the jail system to “maintain critical systems and infrastructure to acceptable to standards,” which includes plumbing, structural needs, electricity, security, fire protection systems, ventilation, heating and air conditioning.

After CGL Companies’ analysis, this organization recommended the following:

▪ Suspend the Main Jail’s current Intake and Health Services Facility project until infrastructure and current jail systems have improved and a system operational analysis is conducted. This analysis will look at the quality of “mechanical, electrical, plumbing, fire suppression, security electronics, physical structure, and equipment,” the report stated. The Main Jail must accommodate its capacity for population growth and improve transportation between facilities.

▪ Create an oversight committee for the jail system planning and to track compliance. This group will include “stakeholder agencies” from all criminal justice systems in the Sacramento County’s government.

▪ Begin to contract for a “comprehensive jail system master plan” that improves the facility’s services.

▪ Make the Jail Planning Committee research options on the facility’s improvement and present them to the Board of Supervisors

▪ Develop a request for proposal for construction and project management, costs for modeling, construction, transitional services, design and design compliance and programming for a staff impact analysis.

The report found the current facility has inadequate residential space, low medical and mental health care, as well as little space for administrative and treatment. The Main Jail is also facing a bed shortage, with incarcerated people sleeping on the floor, classrooms and in “spaces never intended for long term housing,” the report stated. The jail, built in 1989, has a capacity of 2,380, according to the county.

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