County of SAN Luis Obispo Board of Supervisors Agenda Item Transmittal (1) Department (2) Meeting Date (3)

"There is contradictory information about contraband in the jail." The respondent believes that the contradictory information was probably a result of different perspectives of the problem. Contraband is and will continue to be a problem for all jails, including ours. However, over the past year significant improvements have been made and creative ways explored to detect and discourage contraband from entering the jail. Last year the Sheriff's Office reinstituted a strip search policy for all inmates entering housing units. Prior to this change inmates were only strip searched when specific reasonable suspicion existed. This previous policy was a result of a law suit in Ventura County. That case was further researched and determined and supported by County Counsel not to be relevant to our procedure. Today all inmates, male and female, that enter the housing units are strip searched. In addition the Sheriff's Office purchased a detection K-9 for the jail. This is a drug search only K-9 and has been successful in locating narcotics smuggled into the jail. It is believed that much of what comes into the jail comes in by the inmates secreting the items in a body orifice. This makes it very difficult to locate. The law does not permit a cavity search of an inmate without first obtaining a court issued search warrant. A search warrant for this purpose must be supported by probable cause and because of the intrusive nature of such a search warrant is considered difficult to obtain and only utilized for extreme cases. Last year the Sheriff's Office did a thorough evaluation of technology used by airports for the detection of concealed items. Unfortunately, we determined that this device would not help us with our problem and the only other viable alternative was x-ray. The exposure to x-ray would be far too harmful to the inmate and staff, thus this idea was not pursued. Courthouse Holding Facility:

"Correctional officers at the Courthouse do not have ready access to restroom facilities." The respondent agrees with the finding. The part of the court building that houses the Sheriff's Office holding facilities is maintained by the State of California and it is a matter for the State of California to address. These recommendations have been made; however do to the State's budget issues it is not possible at this time.

"Inmates in wheelchairs are transported to holding cells through the public corridors of the Courthouse." The respondent agrees with the finding. This problem is created due to limitations of the current building structure of the courthouse. Currently, there are only staircases that access the courtrooms directly from the holding cells. Once again, the part of the building that is used by the Sheriff's Office is maintained by the State of California and this will require structural changes that would facilitate an alternative route (elevator) from the holding cells to the courtrooms for inmates in wheelchairs. These

"Video surveillance systems are out of date in the Courthouse holding area. '' The respondent agrees with the finding. We have begun the process of replacing several of our video surveillance systems including the one at the courthouse. We have replaced some of the video surveillance system in the main jail and honor farm. In 2012, we consolidated our video storage to one location. We anticipate the replacement of these cameras in 2013 by our Information Technology (IT) personnel. Staff is creating a priority list of our IT projects, and this project is on that list. One of the goals of this project is to have one system with a centralized storage location that will allow IT personnel to more efficiently manage all of our video surveillance systems.