After years of delays, San Diego County jails will remove triple bunks blamed in deaths

After years of warnings from state regulators that the practice was dangerous and violated state building codes, San Diego County is moving to phase out the use of triple bunk beds in its jails.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $3.5 million increase to the sheriff’s budget to remove the bunks.

The change follows repeated findings by the Board of State and Community Corrections — which conducts regular inspections of county jails — that the Sheriff’s Office was placing three people in cells designed for two and putting too many triple bunks in dormitory-style units.

The Sheriff’s Office has acknowledged that triple bunking violates state regulations and creates dangerous conditions inside its jails. Triple bunking has been blamed in part for the deaths of two men and severe injuries suffered by another.

The triple bunks have been around at least since 1987.

A San Diego Union-Tribune article from Dec. 21 of that year, described work crews at a now-shuttered jail in Descanso soldering together bunks. The article quotes a jail official saying that making the bunks in-house saved money, costing about $30 per bed instead of roughly $220 if they’d been bought from a prison supplier.

But the practice has cost the county millions of dollars in l...