The "Racial Justice Task Force--Final Report and Recommendations" was presented to the Board of Supervisors for adoption on July 24, 2018. Prior to the Board meeting, however, Contra Costa County Sheriff, David O. Livingston, submitted a letter to the Supervisors, and County Administrator’s Office, raising concerns about the age of the data used in the Task Force’s report, and the validity of the conclusions derived from this data. Most importantly, this letter urged the Board to oppose Recommendation #21 (recommending the creation of an independent body to review in-custody grievances), and Recommendation #22(recommending the creation of an adult detention oversight body for conditions of confinement). The reason the Sheriff gave for these objections was that these recommendations exceeded the Task Force's scope of responsibility, the Sheriff is an elected constitutional officer independent of the Board of Supervisors, and the Office of Sheriff-Coroner is already subject to sufficient oversight and audits from the state by way of the Attorney General, Board of State and Community Corrections, and Civil Grand Jury of the Superior Court.
Based on the Sheriff’s comments, the Supervisors received a preliminary opinion from County Counsel as to the Boards ability to act in accordance with the two challenged Task Force’s Recommendations. County Counsel opined that the Sheriff-Coroner enjoyed a level of autonomy over his department’s operation of the County’s jails, and the Board could not unilaterally interfere with this function. Furthermore, while the Board could convene an advisory body to report on information about these operations, gaining access to the information necessary to fulfill this function would still require some level of participation from Office of the Sheriff-Coroner.
The Board then voted to strike Recommendations #18 and #19 (these appear as Recommendations #21 and #22 in the Final Report) before adopting the remainder of the Task Force's 20 recommendations and Final Report. In a separate motion, the Board referred the two stricken recommendations back to the Public Protection Committee with direction to gather input from the Sheriff and Racial Justice Task Force to determine if there was some version of these recommendations that can be agreed upon and returned to the Board for reconsideration at a future date.
Discussion
While the conversation around independent civilian oversight of custodial facilities is not new, recently there has been notable activity in this area across the state. Specifically, in just the past few years both Los Angeles County and Santa Clara County have enacted ordinances that have created offices and bodies to provide oversight of both its local jail operations and other law enforcement activities. Below are summaries of the events and actions that led to establishing oversight functions in these two jurisdictions. There are also documents attached to this staff report that further detail the relevant activity in both of these jurisdictions.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY - INSPECTOR GENERAL AND CIVILIAN OVERSIGHT COMMISSION
In 2014 the Board of Supervisors, as part of its duty to supervise the official conduct of the Sheriff under Government Codes §25303, created the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) with the goal of providing the Board with “comprehensive oversight, monitoring of, and reporting about the Sheriff’s Department and its jail facilities.” This development came in the midst of a 2013 investigation into the County’s Sheriff and jails by the US Department of Justice that ultimately resulted in multiple consent decrees to provide individuals detained in their jails with confinement conditions that better ensured each person's safety from harm (including self-harm and excessive force), and provided them with adequate treatment for their various health needs. Since its formation, the OIG has produced a variety of reports for the Board on topics that include Sheriff’s policies regarding interaction with immigration authorities, programs for incarcerated pregnant women, and the safe release of people from the Sheriff’s custody.
In 2015 the Board of Supervisors convened a work group to explore the creation of a Civilian Oversight Commission (Commission). This work resulted in LA's Sheriff and Inspector General signing a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) that established a process for the OIG to get information from the Sheriff for the operation of the Commission and performance of OIG duties. With this MoA, and a set of recommendations from the Work Group, in January 2016 LA’s Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance to establish the County’s nine-member Civilian Oversight Commission as a permanent advisory board that would work with the OIG to review the activities of the County’s Sheriff Department. With its inaugural meeting in January 2017, the Commission officially began fulfilling its charge of ensuring an improved level of public transparency and accountability for the LA County Sheriff.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY - OFFICE OF CORRECTION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT OVERSIGHT
After the 2015 murder of a man by Santa Clara County correctional officials while in their custody, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors established a Blue Ribbon Commission (BRC) with the goal of identifying opportunities to improve in-custody operations within the County’s local jails. The BRC worked with 13 other organizations to provide the Board of Supervisors over 600 recommendations aimed at improving local jail conditions. As part its final report, the establishment of an office that provided an avenue to accomplish meaningful civilian oversight was cited by the BRC as one of the two most important recommendations to improve the conditions and operations of the County's local jails. In 2016 the Board referred the matter to its Finance and Government Operations Committee to move the discussion towards the implementation of the BRC recommendations. As part of this work, the Committee then convened two panels of experts from across the country to discuss the possibility and necessity of creating an independent oversight body in the County. The Committee reported a general consensus among the panelist of the need for such oversight and the importance of the functions that would be provided by such a body. Informed by the work of the BRC, and its own Finance and Government Operations Committee, in April 2018 the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to enact an ordinance for the creation of an Office of Correction and Law Enforcement Oversight. |