The Vista Detention Facility in an undated image.
County Sheriff Kelly Martinez announced Thursday an intensified jail screening program designed to keep illicit drugs and other contraband out of San Diego-area detention centers.
Under the new policy, all jail workers, contractors and anyone else with business in county lockups will be subject to searches intended to "further secure detention facilities from the threat of drugs and contraband entering and harming incarcerated persons and staff," according to the Sheriff's Department.
The new regulations, which will include the use of drug-sniffing service dogs, will not pertain to public visitation areas, the regional agency advised.
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"Years of data and investigations told us our focus needed to be on the incarcerated population," Martinez said in a prepared statement. "We established systems that targeted those offenders. We have had enormous success with this approach. However, it is now time to add to those security measures with a contraband screening of all personnel, contractors and professional visitors who enter our jails."
Further details about the new policy were withheld "to protect the security of ... detention facilities" according to the sheriff's public statement.
"Right now, I don't have the staff to do this full-time 24/7 at every entrance point at seven facilities, so we are going to start it out. I think randomized screening keeps people off guard, so they are never sure if they are going to encounter the screening," Martinez said in an interview with NBC 7.
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The sheriff says in three months, she will present to the Board of Supervisors a proposal to increase staff to cover every door in all facilities 24/7.
The change has been a longtime recommendation of the San Diego Citizens Law Enforcement Review Board.
"CLERB has strongly urged the sheriff to body-scan every single person who works in our county jails to keep illegal drugs from getting inside," said MaryAnne Pintar, head of the advisory agency. "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. It will undoubtedly go a long way toward preventing overdoses, saving lives and sparing families the pain too many have suffered."
Martinez told NBC 7 that she was never against screenings but that CLERB's body-scan recommendation could not be implemented.
"We didn't think that was an effective tool for our employees for a number of reasons," Martinez said. "It's very invasive. It takes time. It's time consuming, and we didn't really think employees would smuggle drugs in that fashion. If they are going to come in, they're going to want to discard or hand off the drugs quickly, so there was really no point."
Martinez said that the policy will be implemented sometime in July. She says in the interest of transparency, the contraband found will be part of the public record.
