By Andrew Engelson
At a Renton City Council committee meeting last week, Devon Schrum, the director of South Correctional Entity (SCORE), defended her record and her staff at the jail, which is owned by six cities in south King County. “We are a human-centered culture,” Schrum said. “Our jail is safe and secure. … Our emphasis is on respect for all of the people that we come into contact with, whether that’s in the jail, their families, folks coming to the lobby, our police, professionals that visit the jail, or any attorneys that come through.”
PubliCola reported last month on 10 people who have died while incarcerated at the jail, along with one who died shortly after being released. Former staff and people previously incarcerated at SCORE described hostile staff, substandard medical care, and filthy conditions at the jail.
Her voice cracking with emotion, Schrum said the deaths at the jail were “hard. It is awful. And [that’s] why we have invested so much in our staff, in the facility and our training and the equipment to try to prevent the next death.”
During her presentation, Schrum noted that SCORE’s medical and opioid treatment programs are accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and that SCORE spent at least $7 million, more than a fifth of its budget, on health care. The presentation was followed by just 12 minutes of questions, and there was no opportunity for public comment.
Councilmember James Alberson told Schrum she shouldn’t “feel like you’ve been called to the principal’s office. Because I think you have an excellent facility.”
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But Councilmember Carmen Rivera, an assistant professor in criminal justice and forensics at Seattle University, said that while she understands the difficult task SCORE and other jails face taking care of people with an array of untreated medical problems, she also finds it “unacceptable” that so many people have died at SCORE, and would like to get the number closer to zero.
“Before I demand any level of accountability or follow through, I want to check in with these families,” of people who’ve died in the jail, she said. “At the heart of it, people died — someone’s daughter, someone’s brother, someone’s uncle.”
Rivera was the only one of 45 city leaders from the six cities that own SCORE who agreed to speak to PubliCola about conditions at the jail. She said was disappointed that there wasn’t much opportunity to ask Schrum questions at last week’s meeting. She did ask Schrum about a $200,000 pilot program that will equip some SCORE residents with monitoring devices that track vital signs. Schrum said she hopes the devices “alert us that somebody is in crisis, maybe even before they do it themselves.” Schrum did not respond to a request for information about the pilot.
Rivera provided an email that Renton Mayor Armando Pavone sent to all Renton city council members in response to PubliCola’s reporting, saying the mayors of the six cities that own SCORE had decided “that the individual cities will not comment on the article or conduct interviews. We unanimously believe that the SCORE administration is best positioned to answer those questions and address some of the misinformation presented in the article.”
When Renton Councilmember Ryan McIrvin asked Schrum if she thought the jail was underfunded, Schrum said it was not, but that if her staff had a “wish list” it would be to add a second nurse to the night shift.
SCORE nurse Lisa Rogers, who told PubliCola she was fired for speaking up about substandard conditions at the jail, said she was the only staff member qualified to give full medical care during the night shift to more than 400 residents in custody at SCORE.
