Offering a window into normalcy, community

One of several programs aimed to help inmates at the Maple Street Correctional Center re-enter their communities after they are released from jail, the inmate visitation services the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office provides include video calls, non-contact visits, in which inmates and their visitors are separated by a glass panel and contact visits, which gives inmates and visitors a chance to spend time in the same room, explained Lt. John Kovach of the Sheriff’s Office.

Video calls allow an inmate and visitor to see each other on a screen and speak to each other through a telephone. They are available to all inmates serving sentences at the Maple Street Correctional Center at 1300 Maple St. and the Maguire Correctional Facility at 300 Bradford St., said Kovach. He added the Sheriff’s Office is working to make the video phone booths available at substations in locations that are farther away from Redwood City, such as Half Moon Bay, to give those wishing to communicate with inmates another way to do so without traveling as far.

He said inmates can make requests for non-contact and contact visits with jail administrators, who take into account whether they have a history of violence as well as the urgency of their requests in deciding whether to grant them.

Built in 2016 and located east of Highway 101 and north of Seaport Boulevard, the Maple Street Correctional Center was designed with the flexibility to accommodate several types of programs, including vocational programs allowing inmates to develop culinary skills and a dog training program called Transitioning Animals Into Loving Homes, said Kovach.

With the passage of Proposition 47, which reduced penalties for certain crimes, more inmates are serving longer sentences in the county jail, said Kovach. He added that depending on their sentences and behavior in jail, many can take advantage of what’s available to them and hopefully increase their chances of staying out of jail long term.

Kovach noted that for many inmates, getting to see their families can make all the difference when it comes to staying motivated to finish their sentences and feeling connected to a community when they are released.

“The whole philosophy is to get as many inmates as we can over here so they prepare themselves for when they get out,” he said. “When you are gone, out, done, you have a job … if you don’t come back for three, five years, maybe never … it’s hard to quantify that.”

For a 35-year-old inmate who wished to remain anonymous, the 45-minute visits she’s been granted with her almost 2-year-old daughter have given her hope as she continues to serve a sentence she expects to finish in August. Since she was taken into custody some three months ago, the inmate said she put in requests for contact visits with her daughter almost every week until her request was granted some six weeks ago.

“It gave me … more hope for my time to go by,” she said. “I don’t want to be acting out or acting stupid … It still gives me something to look forward to with my kid.”

She said the two play with blocks and Legos and read books when her daughter’s father brings her to the jail for visits on Thursday mornings, noting her daughter especially likes to play football. Though her daughter used to cry at the end of their first few visits, she said the toddler has since become accustomed to the sights and sounds of the visit room, which she said do not look reminiscent of a jail, and also the length of time she must wait to visit her mom.

“I need to be able to hold my daughter,” she said. “I don’t want her to forget … who I am.”

Having overseen several family visitation hours at the jail, Sheriff’s Deputy Greg Businger said he’s seen how the opportunity to be in the same room as family members can offer inmates some semblance of normalcy as they serve their sentences. Businger said it can be helpful for sheriff’s deputies to observe inmates with their loved ones to understand what they’re going through and how they might support them as they’re serving their sentences.

“For these guys to be able to hold their babies or even just visit across a table and not on a phone with family … it’s big for them, it’s very big,” he said.

San Jose resident Yamel Meza has been taking her two sons to visit her husband Jose Jimenez at the Maple Street Correctional Center most Sundays for nearly two years. Meza said in a text that contact visits allow her 9-year-old son Jose Luis Jimenez and her 14-year-old son Luis Jimenez to be with their father on Sunday, the day they have designated for family.

Meza, who works at an apartment cleaning company, said she is grateful to deputies like Businger for creating an environment in which she and her family feel comfortable talking to Jose Jimenez and giving him a hug during their visits. The family is looking forward to Jose Jimenez’s release from jail slated for Dec. 10.

“If he was in the other jail … we could not hug him, we would see him behind a window,” she said in a text. “In this program, they give us the opportunity to embrace him.”

Andrea Laue contributed to this report.

anna@smdailyjournal.com

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