SF Sheriff addresses recent jail assaults, low staffing levels
(KRON) – Over the past month, two San Francisco County jails were locked down due to increasing assaults on deputies by inmates at the facilities. Since March 29, nine jail staff members have been assaulted by incarcerated individuals, the San Francisco Sheriff’s Office said.
According to a recent survey released by the San Francisco Sheriff’s Association, the union that oversees deputy sheriffs as employees, officers are not only seeing an increase in physical assaults but also a decrease in quality of life as a whole.
On average, employees reported receiving five hours of sleep per night, with nearly 50% reporting falling asleep at the wheel. The survey also states that 74% experienced depressive symptoms and half experienced anxiety – almost double that of an average jail staff, the survey stated.
“I think that we have many medical conditions that are presumptive in our positions,” San Francisco Sheriff Paul Miyamoto told KRON4 in response to the survey. “We deal with traumas every day. They’re all part of the job of being in law enforcement and being a deputy sheriff.”
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Beyond the survey:
Despite the union calling out the troubles sheriff deputies are experiencing, both the Sheriff’s Association and the Sheriff’s Office will agree that many of these problems are due to being understaffed.
“I think that the challenge for us in getting more people hired is because while we recruit and hire on a routine basis, our numbers haven’t been high in terms of people applying,” Miyamoto said.
Aside from law enforcement jobs being the least popular they’ve ever been nationwide, the sheriff also credits much of the decrease in numbers to the requirements of being a sheriff deputy in California.
According to Miyamoto, California’s basic training for peace officers, POST, requires a minimum commitment of 660 hours for certification, making it difficult for many to show interest in the sheriff deputy role.
Moving forward:
Due to being understaffed, the report mentions that staff work an average of 28 hours of overtime per week. According to the sheriff, however, none of those hours are mandatory. “We don’t draft. We don’t involuntarily hold over people for more than two shifts per week.”
As a result, “deputies are allowed to work as much overtime as they want voluntarily.” Workers can work a maximum of two 8-hour overtime shifts per week, the sheriff said.
To prevent more physical assaults from happening, Miyamoto said he was trying “very hard to get body-worn cameras and tasers in our jails.” Many workers already have that kind of equipment, but Miyamoto said he’s working on giving them to every staff member “so that there’s less anxiety.”
The sheriff thinks both body cams and tasers “are very effective tools in making sure response is appropriate and not harmful [to the deputies].”
“I have absolute confidence in the deputies and the job they do. And I have absolute confidence that, although short-staffed, we are able to deal with the issues that arise in the jails without the need for the National Guard to come in,” Miyamoto said.
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