2006-2007 Santa Clara County Civil Grand Jury Report Four Elmwood Inmates Escape in Five Weeks

Security at the Elmwood Correctional Complex is inadequate and is a public safety threat. The Sheriff’s perimeter patrol at Elmwood was reduced from an eleven- officer staff down to only two because of budgetary choices. Only a single-officer patrol is on duty for a twelve-hour shift. If an exterior patrol had been on duty during the predawn hours of September 3, 2006, the breakout could likely have been prevented. Certainly, the escapees would not have had nine hours and forty minutes to get away. Public safety is of particular concern because there are 683 newly built residences across the street from the jail.

There is inadequate staffing in critical areas such as the barracks areas at night, the food preparation building, and the vehicle gate. The minimum camp is sporadically patrolled at night. There is only one officer on duty in the food preparation area to control 200 working inmates. There is usually only one duty officer on the east gate to inspect several hundred vehicles leaving and entering the jail daily.

Despite repeated requests for security improvements and updates in the DOC budget submissions to the office of the County Executive, funding has been very slow in coming. Some of these requests go back more than seven years. These requests included vital issues such as a modern control center, surveillance cameras, exterior lighting, and a vehicle sallyport.

By failing to address any of these public safety concerns in a timely manner, the county places itself under significant public scrutiny should future escapes occur and an individual gets hurt or killed in the process.

County fire officials recently conducted a comprehensive review of the fire alarm system at Elmwood and found that “most if not all, of the buildings” in the minimum camp, “do not meet minimum fire and building code requirements for detention facilities. They are built of non-rated construction, and most of them lack sprinkler systems, which are just two of the basic minimum requirements for detention facilities.” As the result of this fire code violation, inmates cannot be locked up in their barracks at night.

Training is inconsistent. Control center officers rely on “word-of-mouth” instructions to perform their jobs. As a result, they failed to know that important alarm system functions were not functioning over a two-year period. Alarm system manuals were not available for reference. 8