The Ventura County civil grand jury concluded in its annual inspection of local detention facilities and said prison realignment has had adverse effects on law enforcement holding facilities and that some police agencies have inadequate facilities or staffing.
As required annually by state penal code, grand jurors toured all 15 county detention facilities and observed factors that affect the ability of law enforcement agencies to fulfill their responsibilities.
Among the panel’s findings were that space limitations at the main Oxnard police station have affected officers’ ability to carry out their responsibilities.
“The grand jury observed dual use of rooms and highly confined facilities for staff and equipment at the Oxnard police station,” the grand jury’s report stated.
Cmdr. Andrew Salinas, of the Oxnard Police Department, said the current work conditions are not unacceptable but that the department will collaborate with city officials to accommodate the recommendations. He added that the department would take more space if it could get it.
Another observation included that seats or mattress pads were not in the seven holding cells at the Oxnard facility and not all of the cells had benches for inmates to sit on. However, the report and Salinas both said mattresses are available upon request and two benches were being prepared for installation.
Salinas said the department plans to “install two per year until all are filled.”
At the Santa Paula police station, space for staff is also inadequate, as “detectives are stationed in a trailer adjacent to the police station and use restrooms across an alley in City Hall,” the report stated.
Cmdr. Ish Cordero, of the Santa Paula Police Department, said it was not a lack of space that prompted the investigations unit to move out of the station. The move was intentional, Cordero said, adding that the building also has a conference room.
The police station is “inadequate and deteriorating,” the grand jury said. A men’s restroom was inoperable after being red-tagged due to asbestos contamination and rain had damaged the station’s roof, the report stated.
Cordero said grand jurors toured the facility in December when the department was in the process of getting the restroom fixed. He said Friday night that both the restroom and roof have been repaired. The building itself is old, he said.
Santa Paula police officers also lack access to the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System or a computer-aided dispatch system, so they must call in to get important information, the report stated.
“That’s not an issue for us,” Cordero said.
The department was in the process of getting the telecommunications systems eight to 10 years ago but ran into some problems, he said. It is still working on getting the new technology and Cordero said that if anything, lacking it “puts more of a burden on our dispatchers,” rather than officers.
The grand jury said the department did not have enough available sworn officers and that the number of sworn officers employed by the department was under the maximum number allotted by the City Council. Cordero said the agency has 28 sworn officers, including himself, but that the department is looking to add four other sworn officers to its staff. He said the department has had recruiting problems in the past three years and said that out of every 100 people who test for the position, only three pass. Cordero said the agency is looking for two officers to fill the maximum City Council-allotted sworn positions but because of grant money the department received. it can also fill two extra sworn positions.
Like Santa Paula, the Port Hueneme police station had an “inadequate” number of available sworn officers, according to the grand jury, but the report noted that this was due to injuries. Water was not working in one of the two holding cells at the Port Hueneme facility and the station has limited supplies to clean dirty detainees, the report stated.
In the report, the grand jury recommends that the Santa Paula, Port Hueneme and Oxnard facilities address these issues. Officials with the Port Hueneme Police Department were not available for comment.
Other recommendations include that the Ventura Police Department increase its staff to better deal with the city’s crime rate.
The report also noted that the agency heavily relies on a paper-based system rather than a computer-based system for information management.
Improvements also need to be made to the electronic data communications between the Fillmore police station and Ventura County Sheriff’s Office communications center, according to the report.
Overcrowding continues to be an issue at the county’s main jail in Ventura and Todd Road jail near Santa Paula, despite local efforts to deal with prison realignment issues, according to the report. The state-certified maximum capacity for the main jail, Todd Road jail and east county jail in Thousand Oaks is 1,644 detainees, but the population routinely exceeds 1,680, the report stated. When grand jurors inspected the jails, there were a total of 1,728 prisoners, the report stated.
The grand jury said that by constructing a mental health facility with 64 beds at the Todd Road jail as proposed, “this expansion would free up cells being used as mental health housing at the main jail and provide increased safety for mental health inmates.“
In July 2013, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office applied for state funds to build the Todd Road jail expansion. The initial application was not successful, but the Ventura County Board of Supervisors in December authorized the Sheriff’s Office to reapply.
Having more inmates due to prison realignment has also meant increased incidents of inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff assaults.
The grand jury also hopes the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and Probation Agency will evaluate the local impact of Proposition 47, which called for the reclassification of many drug and property crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
For the complete report go to: http://vcportal.ventura.org/GDJ/docs/reports/2014-15/Detention_Facilities-06.01.15.pdf.
By: Megan Diskin
Ventura Star
June 6, 2015
No comments:
Post a Comment