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Inmates at Redwood City’s Maguire Correctional Facility won’t be able to see their loved ones in person for three and a half months starting this fall, as the jail replaces the outdated, frequently inoperable elevators used for visits.
The pause comes after a six-month hiatus in visitation last year, after a control board malfunction of the only secure elevator at the facility went unfixed.
The elevator debacle has drawn the scorn of family members of those incarcerated and reflects a lack of care for inmate well-being on the part of the county, the family members say.
The San Mateo Sheriff’s Office has known about the elevators’ problems for some time. According to former Undersheriff Dan Perea, breakdowns have been frequent in recent years.
“Everything works well for a certain period, and then something happens again,” he said in a meeting of the Independent Civilian Advisory Commission on the Sheriff’s Office (ICAC) last September.
Part of the problem lies in the elevators’ age. They were installed when the facility was built in 1988, and both the machinery and the wiring have seen better days, said Perea.
Parts required for maintenance are no longer manufactured, so the county’s Office of Public Works has to get replacements custom made, dragging out each round of repairs. Using one of the other non-visitation elevators is out of the question, said Cpt. William Fogarty, because of security concerns.
With the installation of new elevators, the Sheriff’s Office hopes to make them more dependable, the office’s public information officer, Gretchen Spiker, said in an email.
During last year’s six-month visitation shutdown, the Sheriff’s Office moved about 120 residents to the Maple Street Correctional Center in Redwood City, where in-person visits were available. Once the elevator replacement project begins this fall, officials said they may consider similar steps to reduce disruption.
Those remaining at Maguire will rely on video visits – but families of the incarcerated say that the program is woefully inadequate. In an anonymous complaint submitted to local nonprofit Fixin’ SMC, the mother of a Maguire inmate called the virtual visitation platform “pathetic,” citing an abundance of technical issues.
“You only see his face in the little square the size of a postage stamp,” she said. “It also glitches out if either one of us moves our faces even an inch.”
Another problem is privacy. Unlike with in-person visitation, which happens in special rooms, video visits are conducted through a handheld tablet in public recreation areas. “There [are] 20, 30 guys behind [the inmate],” said Jennifer Rodriguez, the wife of a Maguire resident.
“[The inmate] can’t really focus because you’re trying to be on alert.” The calls are also on speaker, meaning surrounding residents can hear the conversation, she said.
While the Sheriff’s Office has heard these concerns, they are unable to resolve the technical issues in the short term, according to Spiker.
Complaints have been forwarded to Smart Communications, the vendor of the tablet software, she wrote, but the office’s contract with Smart Communications doesn’t expire until later this year. Once it does, “the Sheriff’s Office will explore a competitive procurement process to ensure we’re providing the best services available,” she wrote.
Beyond the elevator, families say there’s a larger pattern of visitation issues at San Mateo County jails.
“Their whole entire system of scheduling in-person visits is horrible,” said Jamilah Rosales-Webb of local nonprofit Silicon Valley De-Bug, whose husband is incarcerated at Maguire. Unlike Santa Clara County, which uses an online registration platform to schedule visitation, San Mateo requires family members to call in and book a visit. The first-come, first-served system often means that slots run out by 7:00 a.m., said Rodriguez.
“It’s literally half an hour that you’re sitting there, dialing over and over, like you’re trying to win concert tickets or something,” she said.
Even when they succeed in connecting the call, receptionists don’t always want to help.
“They’re setting you up for failure with their tone of voice,” said Rosales-Webb. “They’re making you feel like this issue is small, and that the inmates should just be happy that they have anything,” she said. For Rosales-Webb, the elevator’s ongoing issues are a symptom of public officials’ insufficient prioritization of residents’ dignity in jail.
Critics believe such roadblocks to in-person visitation are destructive to residents’ mental health. “The inmates, they count on [visitations], and they need that human connection with people who love them,” said Rosales-Webb. When visits are suspended, “it causes… frustration, anger and isolation, depression, all that.”
According to research from Kansas State University, incarcerated people who receive more calls and visits experience better mental health outcomes than those who do not. Official statistics from a county report state that almost half of Maguire’s residents have some form of mental illness, while 70% suffer from drug or alcohol addiction.
Others have raised concerns about rehabilitation. Research has shown that residents who receive more family visits are more likely to gain employment and less likely to reoffend after leaving jail.
“Pretty much everyone that’s in jail is going to get out and come back,” said Fixin’ SMC board member Nancy Goodman, which is why she believes prioritizing rehabilitation is important. “[For] our community safety, we are much better off … keeping [jail residents] integrated in with their community.”
But Fogarty said the Sheriff’s Office’s hands are tied. As far as maintenance issues go, at least, “we’re at the whim of [the elevator repair company] and also at the Department of Public Works of when those elevators will then be up and running,” he said.
