San Diego County Sheriff Kelly Martinez on Thursday announced her department would soon begin screening jail employees, contractors and professional visitors for drugs and other contraband.
The policy is an about-face for the Sheriff's Department, which for years has rejected recommendations from jail safety advocates and a civilian oversight board to screen employees for drugs.
The Sheriff's Department already screens inmates for contraband when they're booked into the jail system, as well as mail arriving at jail facilities. But deadly drugs such as fentanyl still find their way into jails.
"We can't have safe communities if we don't have safe jails or places for people to go while they're going through the justice system," Martinez said. "I myself will go through a contraband screening if I enter the jails ... so nobody's immune."
Two years ago, the county's Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board (CLERB) recommended body scanning employees entering jails to help prevent overdose deaths. At the time, Interim Sheriff Anthony Ray rejected the recommendation, saying frequent body scanning posed a health risk and would hurt staff morale. He also said there was no evidence staff were smuggling drugs in.
Martinez said the expanded contraband screenings will not feature body scanners, but would include drug sniffing dogs and would be unannounced and at random.
As of Monday, 11 drug overdoses in jails had been confirmed since the start of the year. A 2022 report found that San Diego jails had the highest risk of overdose and accidental deaths among all similar-sized county jails in the state.
The expanded screening policy was welcome news to Paul Parker, who publicly resigned his position as executive director of CLERB in March, in part because of the sheriff's resistance to screening her employees for contraband.
Parker acknowledged there was no evidence that sheriff's deputies were responsible for drugs entering the jail system. But he said the mere threat of being caught should deter anyone who may have been considering bringing drugs into jails.
"Even if you can't prove it, this (screening policy) will, I believe, save lives," Parker said.
Martinez said the expanded screening procedures had been discussed with employee unions, including the Deputy Sheriffs' Association of San Diego County, as required by state labor laws.
CLERB chair MaryAnne Pintar thanked Martinez for implementing the new policy.
“As CLERB's new chair, I thank Sheriff Martinez for hearing us and doing the hard work to build out and enact a plan to make every single person working in the jails subject to random, surprise contraband screenings,” Pintar said in a statement. "It will undoubtedly go a long way toward preventing overdoses, saving lives and sparing families the pain too many have suffered."
