The plumbing backs up all too often. The electrical wiring doesn’t support the 21st-century technology that deputies need to do their jobs. Some of the cell doors inside the Vista Detention Facility don’t even lock, meaning whole modules can no longer be used.
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San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez is making her best case for spending $950 million or more to replace the 1970s-era jail, saying it was designed and constructed during an era when people in custody did not receive mental health treatment and many other services.
“The Vista Detention Facility is at the end of its life,” the sheriff said at a community forum in Encinitas this past week. “It was built at a time when we really treated incarceration differently.”
Martinez has been on a publicity campaign since last year, drumming up support for a new North County jail from members of the public – and the county Board of Supervisors, which will be asked to pay for it.
The second community forum held last Tuesday night attracted five dozen people and covered much of the same ground Martinez laid out at her initial town hall early this year.
To support her case for a new Vista jail, the sheriff introduced a panel of her command staff, medical and mental-health officials, the top re-entry program manager and a former prisoner who graduated from a treatment program that works to wean people off opioid addictions.
Cmdr. Christopher Lawrence, the Detention Services Bureau chief in charge of all of the sheriff’s jails, said the Vista facility lacks adequate space for meaningful treatment with a single classroom. Some therapy is done in closets, he said.
“We are relying on a system that is failing,” Lawrence said. “It’s not good for morale, mental health or safety.”
Carlsbad police Capt. Ryan Opeka told the audience that his officers sometimes have to spend four to six hours completing handoffs of people being booked into custody due to inadequate interview spaces and other deficiencies at the Vista jail.
“If it’s taking an extended period or time – for whatever reason that may be – that’s one more person who can’t be in the field,” Opeka said. “That impacts the quality of service that we can provide.”
Robin Sales, who volunteers on the county’s Behavioral Health Advisory Board, said public officials need to find better ways to respond to people who cycle in and out of jail due to drug addictions and mental-health issues.
“The focus needs to be on compassionate care so that every person, whether they are a criminal or not, is getting what they need,” she said.
Jeffrey Warren said he spent decades in and out of jail for low-level crimes he committed to sustain a deep-rooted drug addiction. The treatment he received in a jail-based program helped turn his life around, he said – and the program can only be expanded with more space.
“Now I’m taking college classes and working as a peer counselor,” Warren said.
The Vista jail is the oldest of seven county jails and one of the largest, with some 700 people in custody at any given time. It has been expanded over the years, creating haphazard spaces that are not conducive to safe and effective detention, the sheriff said.
There is no room for mental-health evaluations, meaning interviews lack privacy because they are mostly conducted cell-side. There is limited space for individual and group counseling and almost no areas for the drug-treatment programs that can turn lives around.
“We can’t do the re-entry and rehabilitation work,” the sheriff said. “We are hoping we can get people on the right track to overcome their addictions and get them back into the community.”
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Martinez has sought to modernize her jails since soon after she took over as sheriff in early 2023. She soon introduced a $500 million renovation plan for the jails, which for years recorded an outsized number of deaths and generated numerous multimillion-dollar lawsuits.
According to by the Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board issued in April, the Vista jail is one of the deadliest facilities in the county system.
The report cited a total of 179 in-custody deaths between 2011 and 2024, with 41 of those occurring in Vista. The facility recorded 23% of all jail deaths over that time period, second only to the Central Jail, where 51% of fatalities occurred.
The review board study did not directly link the deaths at the Vista jail to its deteriorating condition but noted that improved medical and mental health services were likely to reduce fatalities.
Earlier this month, the San Diego County grand jury issued a report critical of the sheriff’s handling of jail operations and recommending a series of changes. The Sheriff’s Office has yet to formally respond to those findings.
A 2022 state audit cited 185 jail deaths between 2006 and 2020. It said San Diego County jails were so dangerous that legislation was needed to force reforms. Gov. Gavin Newsom later signed into law two bills aimed at improving local jails.
The county in recent years also has paid tens of millions of dollars in legal settlements to families of people who died in custody
Replacing the Vista jail, which is part of the sprawling North County Regional Center along Melrose Drive that also houses a busy courthouse, has become the sheriff’s top priority among her seven detention facilities.
Initial renovation estimates were in the $300 million range, but the cost increased substantially after a Sheriff’s Office analysis concluded that a full replacement was more cost-effective that a major upgrade.
The Vista jail replacement project is now in its final design stages and a master plan is expected to be released this fall.
Current plans call for constructing a new facility on the grounds of the existing jail, meaning it would be built in phases. Many of the detainees would have to be relocated during the proposed construction.
The replacement jail would have a capacity of 1,063 people, about 30% higher than that of the existing facility.
It was initially expected to cost $950 million but that price is likely higher now – and will continue to climb until construction begins, Martinez said. She said she hopes to break ground in the 2028-29 budget year and construction is expected to take three to four years.
The sheriff plans to update the county Board of Supervisors on her plans in August.
