Silicon Valley is known for technological innovation, but its jails are running on paper — and it’s fueling a public safety crisis.
Santa Clara County is leading Bay Area counties in late-night jail releases due to an outdated paper-based processing system, according to a March report from the Sheriff’s Office. This poses myriad problems because the releases happen when the county’s Reentry Resource Center is closed and people with severe mental health and drug issues have no transportation, housing or basic necessities when they walk out the door.
“Court paperwork often arrives late in the day and must be manually reviewed before any release,” Brooks Jarosz, spokesperson for the sheriff’s office, told San José Spotlight.
He said the system will change as early as September, when the sheriff expects to transition to a digital jail management system and reduce late-night releases.
About 35% of the county’s jail releases happen between 11 p.m. and 6 a.m., according to the report. Alameda and San Mateo counties’ late-night jail releases are at 10% and Contra Costa at 17%. The report didn’t include data from San Francisco.
The same report shows Santa Clara and Alameda counties have the lowest rates of releasing inmates in the daytime when critical resources are available at 44%, compared to San Mateo and Contra Costa counties at 49%.
It shows the delicate balance between releasing incarcerated people safely and as soon as possible — and the county’s public defenders are conflicted.
“Late night releases are fraught. However, the solution cannot be holding people in jail longer,” Acting Public Defender Damon Silver told San José Spotlight.
But a delayed release sometimes makes sense, if you ask one Santa Clara County public defender team which focuses on clients with drug and behavioral health issues, known as the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review unit. The team launched in 2019 and has gotten clients released at their first court appearance and into treatment, rather than sitting in custody for weeks before their trials.
But the program hearings are on Fridays, which conflict with the release of clients because reentry services are closed. It puts the public defenders in a quandary, asking clients to stay in jail over the weekend until transportation and reentry services are available the following Monday.
“People don’t want to wait until Monday morning,” Nedda Alaee, the Pre-Arraignment Representation and Review unit’s supervising attorney, told San José Spotlight. “If we have a really honest conversation with them about the reality of late-night release, a majority of them are willing to balance their situation. But there’s definitely a population of clients who will say, ‘No, I’ll call my mom. I know my girlfriend will come get me.’ We don’t know if that actually pans out.”
Other counties can gather and process release orders faster than Santa Clara County’s paper-based system, and incarcerated people usually wait in a holding area. The sheriff’s report said it’s not a good option in Santa Clara County where holding areas aren’t designed for long-term waits.
“In this case, individuals would be more comfortable and safer in their housing area where they have a bed and can recreate while awaiting release,” the report reads. “Santa Clara County has an aggressive jail reduction program that would lend itself to a larger number of releases as policies and procedures are designed to keep only those individuals in custody who are required to remain in custody.”
The report also blames late-night releases on the acceptance of bail from 5 a.m. to 12 a.m. and the posting of pretrial services staff in the jail during evening and night hours.
The issue has prompted the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors to explore adjusting the resource center’s hours and roll out reentry services at its most troubled facility, the Elmwood Correctional Center in Milpitas, which drove a 20-year high in in-custody deaths last year. Supervisors voted unanimously last month to explore the creation of a dedicated on-site resource center that could provide food, hygiene kits, phone access and connections to housing and behavioral health programs.
“When you are ordered released, you should be released,” Deputy Public Defender Avi Singh told San José Spotlight. “We should not have to trade off safe release for more jail time. No one should have to make that deal.”
Contact Brandon Pho at [email protected] or @brandonphooo on X.
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