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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 06242003 - C.99 RESPONSE TO GRAND JURY REPORT NO. 0303 IT'S TIME TO IMPROVE PRISONER TRANSPORTATION AND THE BOOKING PROCESS FINDIN'C 1. Some, but not all, law enforcement agencies have local holding cells. Response: Agree, The County is aware of at least eight agencies: three in West County, one in East County, and three in Central County, that have holding cells. 2. All booking into the County's detention facilities is done in Martinez. Response: Agree. 3. The WCDF has a designated booking area that has never been put into operation. Response: Agree. 4, The Board of Supervisors has allocated funds to provide 24-hour medical coverage at the WCDF, starting in January 20303. Response: partially disagree. On June 3, 2003, the Board approved an augmented plan of detention healthcare providing 16 hours daily nursing care and 20 hours weekly mental health coverage at WCDF. The Board also authorized the Health Services Department to contract with the County of Santa Clara for one year for inpatient mental health services for inmates. The approved level of care was based upon an assessment of the healthcare requirements of the inmates at MDF. 5. Each local agency has the responsibility for transporting prisoners to Martinez for booking. Usually a sworn officer delivers the prisoners to the MDF. A few agencies use non-sworn police assistants for this duty. Response: Agree. Additionally, some agencies use reserve officers at minimal cost. 5. Some 32,000 arrestees are booked at the MDF annually, Under the best of conditions the time for an officer from the East or West end of the county to transport and book a prisoner is 2 hours. With MDF as the only county booking facility, it often gets "jammed up". This, plus the vagaries of traffic, can mean stretching the time to 4 hours and more that an officer is away from his local community. Response: Agree. It should be noted that Sheriffs Deputies assigned to the unincorporated areas of the County also contend with the challenges of traffic and peak booking periods that take them away from their beats. 7. There is no coordinated prisoner transportation system in the county. Response: Partially disagree. 8. A large number of the local agencies have stated their desire for a coordinated prisoner transportation system and have indicated willingness to contribute to the cost of such system. Response: Disagree. The Sheriff is aware that one or two West County agencies have expressed this desire. In a survey conducted by the County in 1995, most agencies stated that they would not be willing to dedicate any cost savings achieved as a result of regionalized transportation services to help finance these services. In the survey, many of the agencies also expressed doubts that a regionalized transportation system for prisoners would necessarily enhance police services. Some of the operational issues reported by agencies as potential obstacles were: legal liability for each agency's prisoners, difficulty in achieving coordination among the agencies, chain of custody, evidence handling, extended supervision in local holding cells pending arrival of transport, and availability of holding facilities pending the arrival of transport. Solutions to most of these issues involve additional costs. The issue of legal liability is one in which gaining consensus would be a tremendous challenge. It's Time to Improve Prisoner Transportation and the Booking Process June 18, 2003 County Response to Grand Jury Report No. 0303 Page 2 9. All arresting agencies must use the Sheriffs booking form and fill it out before an arrestee will be accepted at the MDF. Many agencies also have booking forms of their own. Response: Agree. 10. There is duplication in the booking process in that many agencies book prisoners locally with booking done again at the MDF. Response: Agree. Most agencies duplicate some of the booking functions performed at the MDF in order to capture data in their local justice systems. 11. There is no modern electronic means of transferring or sharing booking information between the MDF and the local jurisdictions. Response: Disagree. The means exist, and the County is in its first year of what promises to be a multiyear collaborative endeavor with local justice agencies and other agencies to develop such a system, The Automated Regional Information Exchange System (ARIES), now in its infancy, will leverage the existing systems and data of all the participating local agencies by building interfaces between those systems and the County's database to permit information sharing. The Justice Automation Advisory Committee (JAAC) comprising three police chiefs who are empowered to represent all police chiefs regarding ARIES, the County Administrator, District Attorney, Public Defender, County Probation Officer, Sheriff, Chief Information Technology Officer, and Superior Court Executive Officer, provides executive policy oversight on ARIES. The JAAC has identified 45 projects involving different types of information that participating agencies would like to share. As funds become available, the JAAC votes on the project(s) to be implemented. System development costs thus far have been borne primarily by the County, however, participating agencies are also contributing funds to the project. One of the system goals is to provide an electronic means of sharing booking information between the MDF, local police, and other key jurisdictions. 12. The "live scan" fingerprinting system is used by many local agencies. The MDF can access this information, thus eliminating the need to fingerprint again in Martinez. Response: Agree. If an acceptable image is captured at the local agency, it can be transmitted to the MDF and, thereby, obviate the need to fingerprint again at MDF. 13. The local arresting agency is responsible for being sure there is no medical issue with an arrestee before delivering the person to Martinez. This also adds to the time the arresting officer is away from the local beat. Response: Agree, with the clarification that the County has no influence over the local arresting agencies'responsibilities in this regard and cannot alleviate it. 14. No data is currently available as to the location of inmate arrests (the Sheriffs Department is working to change the system so it can get this data). However, senior law enforcement officials estimate that at least 50% of those booked in Martinez come from West County. Response: Partially disagree. Every law enforcement agency within Contra Costa County is assigned an agency number that is required to be entered on the Sheriff's standard booking form. Although the Sheriff's Department does not track the exact location of each arrest, it does maintain a record of which jurisdiction makes each arrest. These records indicate that in 2002, less than 20% (5,116) of the total bookings emanated from West County law enforcement agencies. CONCLUSIONS 1. An inordinate amount of time is required of local police officers in transporting It's Time to Improve Prisoner Transportation and the Booking Process June 18, 2003 County Response to Grand Jury Report No. 0303 Page 3 arrestees to Martinez and waiting for the booking to be completed. 2. A coordinated countywide prisoner transportation system would allow these officers to remain in their local communities. 3. Public safety is negatively impacted by the large number of hours spent by law enforcement officers in transporting and booking prisoners. 4. The opening of the West County Detention Facility booking area would be a great boon to the law enforcement agencies in West County. 5. Booking is a paper intensive process with a plethora of booking forms used by the various law enforcement agencies leading to a lot of duplication of effort. R C't3MMENDATIONS The 2002-2003 Grand Jury makes the following recommendations to the Contra Costa County Sheriff-Coroner and to the Board of Supervisors: 1. Find a way to get the WCDF booking area open and in operation within 12 months. Response: Will not be implemented because it is not reasonable or fiscally feasible. The Board of Supervisors appropriated funds to the Health Services Department to establish 16-hour per day, 7 days per week medical coverage at the West County Detention Facility (WCDF) to facilitate better inmate population management among all county detention facilities. MDF population exceeded the State Board of Corrections rated capacity, and needed to be reduced and brought into compliance with State regulations. Providing medical coverage at WCDF enabled detention management to transfer non-violent offenders from MDF, which was overcrowded, to WCDF, which had additional capacity. The provision of medical coverage at WCDF did not signify intent of the Board of Supervisors to open a second intake unit at INCDF. No funds have been appropriated for the additional Custody or Medical personnel needed to operate the booking area at WCDF. The County Administrator conducted a comparison costlbenefit analysis in October 1995, at which time it was determined that it would not be financially feasible to open a second intake unit at WCDF. Moreover, the WCDF was built as a medium security jail with a limited-classification housing unit, and was not intended to house, even temporarily, violent criminals. 2. Form a transportation commission to investigate the establishment of a countywide prisoner transportation system. This commission should: include representatives of local law enforcement agencies; undertake a feasibility study including a cost/benefits analysis; • determine the willingness of each local agency to contribute to the cost; and • develop deliverables and timetables for both the feasibility study and an implementation plan if the feasibility study result is positive. Response: Will not be implemented. it is the obligation and responsibility of the arresting agency to transport a subject to the booking facility where medical personnel can perform an evaluation. if the subject requires immediate medical treatment, the arresting agency is required to seek such treatment. The Office of the Sheriff is not in favor of accepting detained subjects in the field. Each detained subject needs to have a medical clearance before being accepted by the Sheriff. Even if a mechanism could be negotiated to share the transport and booking responsibilities, most local police agencies, in a poll initiated by the County, have It's Time to Improve Prisoner Transportation and the Booking Process June 18, 2003 County Response to Grand Jury Report No. 0303 Page 4 Even if a mechanism could be negotiated to share the transport and booking responsibilities, most local police agencies, in a poll initiated by the County, have indicated that they would not be willing to help finance such a system and have registered doubts as to the practicality of such a system. If a chief or chiefs of police wish to pursue some type of transportation arrangement, it is incumbent on them to approach the Sheriff with a proposal. The Sheriff has advised the Board that he is willing to consider any proposal submitted by the chiefs of police, and has also advised the Board regarding his position on operational issues such as cost and legal liability on which he and the Board, in all prudence, must not compromise. 3. Form a group to determine how to: • simplify and standardize the booking forms used by all agencies; • establish a modern electronic means of sharing booking information between the local agencies and the MDF/WCDF; and • develop deliverables and a timetable for this process simplification and its implementation. Response: Has not yet been implemented, but will be partially implemented over a period of several years, as funding permits. The Sheriff, working through the JAAC, has established the ARIES, an information exchange network which, when fully operable, will permit sharing of information among all Contra Costa County justice agencies. Booking farms will not be standardized because the forms are designed to capture information required by each agency's unique criminal justice system. Since the ARIES does not attempt to standardize data systems but rather data elements across all agencies, there is no need or appreciable benefit to standardizing the booking forms. 4. The Sheriff to make public progress reports on the above three items to the Board of Supervisors at six-month intervals. Response: Will not be implemented with regard to Recommendations No. 9 and 2 because the County does not intend to implement those recommendations. With regard to Recommendation No. 3, the ARIES Working Committee, a staff level committee under the JAAC representing all justice agencies, currently publishes minutes of its monthly meetings and status reports, which are available to the Board upon request.