Stanislaus County sheriff’s 2020 annual report is about transparency

I had the privilege of spending time with Sheriff Jeff Dirkse recently, talking about this strange year.

COVID-19 affected everyone, including law enforcement. While some serious crimes went up, others fell. Speeding and acting-out were visible to everyone, but crimes like domestic violence and child abuse became more deeply hidden.

If COVID-19 wasn’t enough, we also endured the worst wildfire ever in Stanislaus County. The sheriff sent deputies through smoke along twisting hillside roads to issue evacuation orders. Sometimes deputies were trying to find people who didn’t want to be found; others didn’t want to leave.

I asked so many questions about what the 515 sworn officers and 199 staff members encountered in 2020, that he suggested I look over the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Office Annual Report. Our Sheriff’s Office is one of the few anywhere that produces such a report.

We all have mental images of what deputies do – ready for action, chasing down bad guys, guns drawn. Sadly, many of us also carry images of officers confronting people of color without a good reason and without regard for making a bad situation worse.

The data, information and charts in this report paint a more complete picture. The department has Latino, African American, white, Asian and Native American deputies. Stanislaus County’s criminals are just as diverse.

The report shows deputies interacted with the public 90,807 times in 2020 – or around 250 times a day. In those tens of thousands of contacts, patrol deputies were required to use force (tackling a person, using a taser or chemical mace) only 266 times. The report shows both the ethnic backgrounds of both offenders and officers.

I was stunned to learn that violence was surprisingly rare. On only three occasions did deputies fire their weapons – or one incident in every 30,266 contacts. Two of those incidents, unfortunately, resulted in a death.

There’s another image of law enforcement found in this report. Despite COVID-19’s required social distancing, deputies made hundreds of positive contacts, virtually and in person. This ranged from speaking to students and groups, to reuniting lost parents with their kids and even delivering Christmas gifts.

Our public servants were more likely to pat you on the back than pat you down.

There’s a lot more in the report broken down by age, gender, geography and the nature of the crimes.

I asked Sheriff Dirkse what he’s trying to achieve by making this information public. He said it is all about transparency.

He says transparency creates accountability for his deputies, and accountability is at the core of creating public trust. To earn that trust, Sheriff Dirkse said his deputies must meet the department’s high standards and show personal integrity. Only then will the public have faith in the work they do.

Being accountable, he said, “is about developing the employee and protecting the public’s trust in what we do.”

What does accountability look like? The report shows the public lodged 36 complaints against the Sheriff’s department employees. But supervisors initiated 78 such actions – meaning a deputy is twice as likely to be disciplined because a supervisor noticed a problem than because the public reported something wrong.

Across America, law enforcement is under greater scrutiny than at any time I can recall – including in Stanislaus County where Sheriff Dirkse has started Project Resolve. We need professionals to enforce the laws that keep us safe. We also need faith that our sheriff is making certain that those doing this work are doing it well.

This report allows us to see just how well the work is being done.

Jeremiah Williams is a Modesto businessman, past lieutenant governor of Kiwanis Division 46, a member of the Stanislaus County Equal Rights Commission and assistant pastor of the Revival Center of the United Pentecostal Church.

This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 4:00 AM.