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The Alameda County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a request from Sheriff Greg Ahern to spend $318 million over three years to add guards and mental health staffers to the Santa Rita Jail.
After a roughly four-hour hearing during which more than two dozen members of the public voiced opposition to the plan — and not one spoke in favor — the supervisors voted 3-2 to approve the request.
The funding will be used to add 265 deputies and 84 so-called “non-sworn” staffers through the sheriff’s department and 107 mental health care workers and staff through the county’s Health Care Services Agency.
“The state has released people with mental health issues (from prisons), and they wind up with us,” said Supervisor Scott Haggerty, who voted in favor of the plan. “We weren’t equipped to deal with this in the first place and because we weren’t equipped, we got sued.”
The hiring proposal is the result of negotiations between plaintiffs’ attorneys and the county over a lawsuit filed roughly two years ago that claims the jail has systematically committed civil and human rights violations against inmates.
“(The consultant) immediately informed us that it was their opinion that we were severely understaffed on the custody side as well as the mental health side,” Undersheriff Rich Lucia told the board.
Since the courts have released roughly 1,000 Santa Rita inmates in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic in an effort to slow its spread among the jail population, there are currently about 1,700 people in Santa Rita Jail at the moment.
About 35% of them are in need of some kind of mental health care, according to county officials.
“We have people who are in custody, who are going to be in custody, and we need to provide mental health services to them,” said Supervisor Nate Miley, who also voted in favor of the proposal.
Supervisor Richard Valle also voted in favor and explained his position by reading part of the consultant’s report, which says there is a “very public tension that exists between community activists and the sheriff.”
But without “additional staff and resources … there is little hope” that the sheriff can resolve the problems brought up in the lawsuit, according to Valle.
Supervisor Wilma Chan, however, echoed many of the public speakers when she noted that the consultant’s report came out before so many inmates were released due to COVID-19 and said that instead of adding more staff to the jail, the county should be seriously considering a very different strategy.
“I think this could be a time to discuss sensible prison reform,” Chan said.
Chan said she’s not convinced that the jail population will rise back to pre-pandemic levels after the crisis has passed and so the number of new hires proposed by the sheriff might not even be warranted.
She also noted that the county was facing a $74 million budget shortfall even before COVID-19 crushed tax revenues.
“We don’t know where (the money’s) coming from,” Chan said.
Both Chan and Supervisor Keith Carson, who also voted against the proposal, pointed out that the sheriff currently has 40 vacant positions at the jail and has been having trouble filling those jobs.
Many of the public speakers said that they opposed the plan because mental health care is most effective outside of a jail setting and that the county should be funding more community-based treatment options and diverting inmates into those programs.
Lee Davis, chair of the Alameda County Mental Health Advisory Board, said her board unanimously opposes the proposal.
Any additional county money should be tied to financial and performance audits of the sheriff’s department, Davis said.
“There’s not enough information in this proposal to make a prudent and publicly responsible decision,” Davis said.
“This is an enormous financial request,” she said. “More effective and more cost-effect alternatives deserve consideration.”
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