The Office of Correction and Law Enforcement Monitoring… A Broken Promise

illo : AD Avila

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July 31, 2024

To: County of Santa Clara, Board of Supervisors

70 West Hedding Street

East Wing, 10th Floor

San Jose, CA 95110

RE: OCLEM… A Broken Promise, By Jose Valle, Community Organizer, Silicon Valley

De-Bug

If slavery or child labor was authorized, would developing a policy and training for slavery or

child labor be the right thing to do?

This seems to be the case for [the] Office of Correction and Law Enforcement Monitoring (OCLEM), Santa Clara County’s Sheriff’s jail and law enforcement independent monitoring agency.

OCLEM… A Broken Promise

The OIR Group, who has been contracted to fill in the shoes of OCLEM since 2020, first seemed promising. OCLEM’s responsibility has been to monitor the Sheriff’s jail and law enforcement operations, Custody Health Services, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and Behavioral Health Services Department, reviewing and making recommendations regarding policies and best practices of the District Attorney, use of force patterns and in-custody deaths.

On average, OCLEM staff members are paid $250 an hour, with their highest paid staff member Dr. David Hellerstein getting paid $385 an hour. OCLEM’s full pay is $7,553,554 big ones! OIR is contracted until January 14, 2030 to make policy recommendations supposedly based on “best practices” on what has been known historically as bad practices, like tasers, tear gas and mass incarceration. OCLEM’s scope is limited. Based on their contract, they can’t make recommendations on whether or not the Board of Supervisors or the Sheriff’s Office should take on a bad practice, instead they are limited to recommending the best way to implement a bad practice? Make sense?

Best Practices For Bad Practices?

Although tear gas has almost exclusively been used on Santa Clara County’s mental health

population that has been determined by the courts to be mentally incompetent, in a San Jose Spotlight article, OIR’s head honcho Michael Gennaco is quoted stating the below:

“Absolutely, yes we support … the continued use of (chemical agents),” - Michael Gennaco, Why Is Santa Clara County Still Using Tear Gas In Jails? by Ben Irwin, San

Jose Spotlight, September 11, 2023

Although tasers have been restricted from California prisons, OCLEM representative Samara

Marion stated the below during a CCLEM Committee meeting:

“We are supportive of the policy development around tasers, we are supportive of a

policy if tasers are implemented and authorized… so that they can be used in the most

effective and safe way” - OCLEM representative Samara Marion, CCLEM Committee

Regular Meeting, August 22, 2023

During that same CCLEM meeting, both the Sheriff’s and OCLEM were pressed with

controversy after Sheriff Bob Jonsen stated that AXON’s new hot “Taser 10” was recommended by both the Consent Decree Use Of Force Monitors and OCLEM.

“They (Taser 10) are recommended by our Consent Decree Use Of Force Monitors,

OCLEM and used by every agency in the county and neighboring Sheriffs departments in San Mateo, Alameda and Santa Cruz“ - Sheriff Bob Jonsen, CCLEM Committee Regular Meeting, August 22, 2023

Am I the only one that sees this as a conflict of interests? Or a Contradiction? As a community, do we not expect more from an independent monitoring agency other than being the Sheriff’s co-signer?

Slavery and Child Labor Best Practices

Slavery was first introduced to the Americas in 1492 during Spanish colonization. The Spaniards had already brought with them slaves and indentured servants from Spain to the Americas. They then enslaved Mexicans (Native Americans) and later Africans. The British introduced slavery to what would later be the United States in 1619 and we all know that the United States followed suit until President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, declaring that all enslaved Africans were free. And believe it or not, there were failed policies and laws created during slavery that somehow attempted to right a wrong. In fact, our current 13th amendment is credited to abolishing slavery except for incarcerated peoples which reflects the same demographics of previously colonized and enslaved peoples. They gave Black folks their freedom but on the same token gave them Jim Crow laws to incarcerate an entire people in mass.

Child labor supposedly ended in the United States in 1938 but child labor in the fields, an

occupation previously filled by slaves, and whose demographics are predominantly Mexican are still an issue in present day. It may still be an issue for an undocumented immigrant to vote or legally reside in the United States but it's definitely not an issue for the average American to eat a burger without tomatoes and lettuce picked by a Mexican.

Quite simply, you just can’t put a best practice or create a good policy or law on oppression.

Could you imagine an independent monitoring agency that hides behind a veil of having no

position on slavery or child labor? And restricted to recommending the best policy possible for slavery or child labor? Then making an impression that this somehow makes slavery or child labor better?

A Final Note

I am formerly incarcerated, a community organizer and prisoner’s human rights advocate for

Silicon Valley De-Bug.

I supported the incarcerated in Elmwood to push for college credit courses.

I adhered to the concerns of hunger strikers and their families behind the Chavez V. Santa Clara County federal consent decree to end infinite solitary confinement and improve jail conditions.

I sat alongside the sister of Michael Tyree in court when officers were found guilty of murder.

And I was there every step of the way for incarcerated folks and their families when contracted with Covid-19 positive in our jails, met with neglect and the most inhumane medical treatment I’ve heard of in all my years.

When correctional officers were abusing their power, cases of physical and sexual abuse,

questionable deaths, or lack of medical treatment, I was there for families and their incarcerated loved ones to attempt to get some type of answers, grievances heard, and offer my support.

With my efforts, and through Silicon Valley De-Bug, we have changed California law, shaped

policy that directly impacted incarcerated folks and acted as support for families and incarcerated folks.

I do not get paid $250 an hour, I do not collect data, make reports or give recommendations to inherently bad practices. I am still very much a working class community organizer but how is it that with limited resources, I have been able to push boundaries beyond data reporting and making recommendations for bad practices that even a blind man can see?

Officers already have plenty of staff, training, and tools including military weapons such as Clear Out tear gas and there is absolutely no need to to add another inherently deadly weapon to their tool belt. The wheels of justice turn far slower for the incarcerated directly impacted by generational poverty and inequality, who remain powerless and voiceless, and whenever an incarcerated loved one does die, families are often not contacted, or given any answers until after years of pain and the civil courts get involved.

There is absolutely no safe way to use a taser in a jail setting, the only guarantee that we have is that there will be more abuse, deaths and lawsuits.

If OCLEM, OIR or any independent monitoring agency is going to work, they have to at least be able to put their foot down when tasked to make recommendations for a system of oppression. Most importantly, an independent monitoring agency has to be able to do more than just monitor, they have to be able to hold bad actors accountable and push policy that reflects the safety and restoration of the directly impacted. That would be the right thing to do!

Sincerely,

Jose Valle

Community Organizer

Silicon Valley De-Bug

701 Lenzen Ave.

San Jose, Ca 95126