The Monterey County Sheriff’s Office has taken many steps over the past months to keep the inmates and staff at the Monterey County Jail safe and healthy from the COVID-19 virus. Below are a number of the actions taken:
- Additional COVID medical screening at intake since February
- Taking the temperature of every inmate that comes into custody
- Providing masks to every inmate at the County Jail as soon as they arrive
- Replacing the masks twice a week
- Made the jail go to one point of entry for all staff, Sheriff’s staff and contract vendors
- Taking the temperature of every staff member who enters the facility, sending home anyone with a temperature above 100.4
- Providing daily temperature checks for all inmates, twice daily for those in observation units
- Providing 14-day observation housing mandatory for all new arriving inmates who do not get released at intake, COVID testing them prior to release to general housing
- Providing additional cleaning supplies in every unit
- Providing additional soap to every inmate twice a week and three times for COVID positive units
- Placed additional hand washing stations and hand sanitizer throughout the facility
- Limited people from the outside from coming into the facility to keep from introducing or spreading the virus
- Provided free video visits and phone calls through the inmate phone provider
- Providing large water coolers with Gatorade and extra Tylenol for inmates in COVID positive units
- Provided video court and video visiting to attorneys
- Stopped using reusable dinner trays and went to single use containers
- Worked with the Superior Court on two separate occasions to get at risk inmates released early
- Utilized the Sheriff’s authority to release inmates early under Government Code 8658
- Instituted Incident Command and Incident Action Plan process
- Daily messaging to inmates via the tablets as (Monday – Friday) as well as regular updates of CDC information regarding the COVID-19 virus
- Coordinated placement with Public Health and the Office of Emergency Services of released inmates into needed shelter through Project Roomkey. Transported a number of these released inmates directly to the housing when other transportation options were unavailable.