Thumbnail photo by Amanda Dockter The Civil Grand Jury painted a rosier picture of the Del Norte County Jail this year, commending the sheriff’s office on steps taken to address the issues last year’s investigation uncovered. However, after touring the facility in January, five Grand Jurors still had concerns ranging from stained and filthy walls and floors to an inmate property room that was so malodorous some members didn’t want to enter. Much like last year, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott acknowledged the truth in the Grand Jury’s report, though he said addressing many of those concerns is outside of his control. As for the unsanitary property room, Scott said the Measure R Oversight Committee has already approved an emergency purchase of a vacuum sealer his staff can use to better store inmates’ belongings. “I got a hold of a couple of other jails and figured out that the industry standard now is these big vacuum systems,” the sheriff told Redwood Voice Community News on Wednesday. “Stuff goes in the vacuum bag, you seal it completely shut and then you store it so there’s no way any cross contamination can happen. I think that was right around $15,000-18,000 for that, and we’re using it. It’s good to have citizens come through and pinpoint some of that stuff.” Published on July 11, the Del Norte County Grand Jury’s 2024-25 report comes about a month after the Board of Supervisors green lit a proposal to house adult inmates in the Youth Opportunity Center while the jail undergoes a $10 million rehabilitation project. The project will be paid for through several different funding sources including a $3.1 million federal appropriation from the late U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, awarded to Del Norte County in 2022. Del Norte also secured roughly $2 million from the Board of State and Community Corrections’ Partnership Program as well as CalAIM’s Providing Access and Transforming Health Initiatives program. Construction on the project is expected to begin in about March 2026, according to a presentation Assistant County Administrative Officer Randy Hooper, Capt. Kyle Stevens and Devon Carter, of NMR Architects in Redding, gave to the Board of Supervisors on June 10. The Grand Jury toured the jail on Jan. 11, 2025 as part of its state mandate to annually inquire into the condition and management of public prisons within Del Norte County. Its members also reviewed the Board of State and Community Corrections Initial Inspection Report and spoke with several staff members. Their jail tour was facilitated by the DNSO’s jail captains. During the tour, jurors found that the floors and walls throughout the facility were stained and dirty. They noted a “desperate need for repairs and updates throughout the facility,” stating in their report that the most pressing needs were in the intake holding cells. The Grand Jury report stated that they noted broken glass, missing safety padding and, in one case, a cell door that lacked the proper locking mechanism. The facility’s visiting area was also noted to be dirty and had broken windows. The Grand Jury members who toured the facility also noted inoperable sheriff’s boats in the jail’s back parking lot. They recommended moving that equipment to a more appropriate location, suggesting the old U.S. Coast Guard building at the Crescent City Harbor. According to Scott, many of the concerns the Grand Jury raised this year is up to building maintenance to address. Take the broken windows in the holding cells, for example, the sheriff noted that it’s something the Grand Jury noticed last year and, while the windows aren’t completely broken out, they do pose a safety risk. “If a person hits it enough times over a period of time, they might be able to get a shard of that glass and make a weapon,” Scott said. “That’s something that I talked to the building maintenance director [about] a couple of months ago. He told me he had some glass on order. I haven’t heard back from him on that yet, so I’m thinking that they ordered the glass.” Currently, two building maintenance staff members work with the sheriff’s department, Scott said, finding consistent maintenance staff is difficult. “You’ll get an employee, a good employee, which they have right now, [who] will start lots of projects and fixing things and getting things going, but it falls into the category of if you don’t pay your people, they move onto other jobs,” he said. “I know the county’s working on a pay structure change, but I really think that these past issues going way back is this constant revolving door of salaries.” The building maintenance director is also seeking a full-time person who could do janitorial work and repairs, Scott said. The sheriff also addressed the Grand Jury’s recommendation that his office use an inmate crew to help clean and maintain the jail. There is a small group of inmates who cook all the meals, but that group isn’t large enough to help with cleaning. They have to meet a certain criteria involving escape risk, whether or not they committed a violent crime as well as if they pose a potential threat to other inmates, Scott said. “Nowadays most of the people in the jail are not eligible for that,” he said. “They’re a little more trusted than the other inmates so they get to work off some of their time and they get a little more benefit than your higher risk inmates.” Still, if there were enough inmates who were eligible to do that kind of work in the jail, Scott said he’d use them. Even if it’s for something as simple as waxing the floors. The sheriff pointed out that one of the concerns the Grand Jury raised was the state of the floors. “They look filthy, but they just haven’t been stripped and waxed,” Scott said. “They’re sanitized and they’re scrubbed down, but they need to be completely stripped and waxed because they’re so old.” Last year, the Grand Jury stated that the jail was understaffed and was out of compliance with BSCC regulations. New-hires often stay only one year and then leave. Because of staffing shortages, employees sometimes worked 12-hour shifts. It was partly due to this report that Scott went before the Board of Supervisors last summer with a proposal to freeze positions that had been vacant for more than a decade so he could increase salaries for new and existing employees. According to Scott, this decision resulted in the reduction of three positions in the jail and three positions in patrol. “That gave us somewhere around $400,000 to increase everyone’s pay by about 14 to 15 percent,” he said. “It helped quite a bit. It’s still definitely not where we should be, but it’s much closer and it helped with retention and hiring dramatically.” Currently, there is one vacancy for a correctional deputy at the Del Norte County Jail and two vacancies for a correctional technician, Scott said. In patrol, there are about two vacancies, Scott said. There are also two court bailiff vacancies, he said. “I do have a POST study going on that will take quite some time, but will tell us how many deputy sheriffs we should have out there on patrol and how many deputy sheriffs we should have in the investigations division and how many jail staff we should have,” Scott said, adding that the Peace Officer Standards and Training study will be based on the industry standard as well as Del Norte County’s population. The sheriff said he will be able to bring that study back to the Board of Supervisors and “we can all work on it together.” Scott is required to respond to the Del Norte County Grand Jury and Judge Karen Olsen within 90 days of the report’s publication. 2024 2025 Grand Jury Final ReportDownload