Sheriff Brown: Assemblymember Gregg Hart misses the mark

There are reasons why sheriffs run the jail systems for 57 of California’s 58 counties.¹ It’s because sheriffs and their staffs have the experience, the knowledge and the legal authority to run those jails in the most efficient and effective ways possible.

Madera, Santa Clara, and Napa counties each faced significant legal, political, and operational hurdles in shifting jail control from elected sheriffs to county departments of corrections. Key challenges have included issues with higher costs, efficiency, liability, security, employee morale and personnel authority. In 2021, Madera supervisors voted unanimously to return oversight and management of the county’s jail to the sheriff’s office. In 2023 similar action was taken in Santa Clara County to return control of the jail to the sheriff’s office. Napa County remains California’s sole county with a separate department of corrections, but historically Napa County Civil Grand Juries have frequently recommended that control of the jail be returned to the sheriff.

Contrary to Hart’s assertions, there are already robust accountability measures in place for elected sheriffs. They are held accountable by the Governor, the Attorney General, the Grand Jury, the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC), the federal, state and local courts, by the boards of supervisors who control their budgets, and by the ultimate authority – the voters who elect them to office. As such, they receive far more scrutiny and oversight than most other appointed or elected officials.

Especially troubling is the fact that Assemblymember Hart wrote and introduced his proposed legislation without any notification to or discussion with me or my staff. If he had, or if he had visited our jails and seen firsthand how we run our jail system, he could have come away with an understanding of what real problems our county faces in providing correctional services, not proposing solutions in search of problems.

Rather than setting the stage to restructure who runs the jails, the focus of any new legislation should be centered on ensuring that California’s jails receive adequate funding and suitable tools to provide proper staffing, security and robust rehabilitative programming. That includes appropriate mental health and addiction services for those incarcerated persons who suffer from these afflictions, but who must be humanely incarcerated due to serious crimes they have committed.

As always, we remain available and committed to working together in good faith with all stakeholders to address the challenges that counties face in operating their jail systems.

¹ Only one county (Napa) currently operates its jail through a department of corrections. Two counties (Sierra & Alpine) have no jail, but share adjacent county jails managed and operated by sheriffs.