By Jamie Hansen
The Press Democrat
SONOMA COUNTY, Calif. — After Correctional Deputy Deanna Rublaitus finished her first shift of the day in a mental health unit at the Sonoma County Jail on Tuesday afternoon, she prepared for her second shift in a unit that houses only women.
As a female deputy working at the jail, Rublaitus finds herself in high demand these days. Although she’s assigned to the mental health unit, she’s often asked to work in other areas where women are needed due to a shortage of female jail deputies brought on by layoffs and a lack of hiring during the recession, as well as women retiring or transferring to other jobs.
In an effort to address the issue, Sheriff Steve Freitas swore in three new female deputies last week, the result of an intensive, female-only hiring effort the jail began last year and is continuing in 2014.
“We’re doing a lot to turn this around and get folks in here,” said Capt. Patti Bennett, who holds one of the top two management positions at the jail.
Part of the reason for the female-specific hiring effort is because the jail must maintain a certain number of women to meet state and federal requirements without requiring excessive overtime from its current female deputies, Assistant Sheriff Randall Walker said. Those requirements stipulate that a female deputy must be present at all times in all-women units or in certain low-privacy situations, among other things.
The short staffing has prevented officials from reopening a female-only unit at its North County Detention Facility that was closed in 2010.
The jail’s staffing issues aren’t limited to women, however. Correctional deputies, both men and women, have worked an increasing amount of overtime in recent years because of short staffing brought on by layoffs and budget cuts during the recession, Walker said. At the same time, a number of deputies retired or transferred to other departments and could not be replaced.
That was exacerbated in 2012 by a roughly 13 percent increase in the number of jail inmates as the result of prison realignment — the state’s shift of lower-level criminals to county jails.
In September 2012, the Sheriff’s Office launched a hiring effort to begin restoring its staffing levels. In an additional effort to ease the load on correctional deputies, the jail this spring sent nearly 70 inmates to Alameda County Jail. That move helped reduce the amount of mandatory overtime deputies must work from as much as 52 hours per week to as much as 36, Walker said.
However, it didn’t do much to diminish the need for female deputies because of legal requirements that a female deputy be present in all-women units, in the booking department whenever a female is being processed, and in a range of other circumstances.
Currently, 33 female deputies work in the jail, constituting about 18 percent of all correctional deputy positions. Not all of those women are available to work directly with inmates because of training or special assignments, Walker said.
In 2009, before budget cuts necessitated layoffs, 40 female deputies made up 19 percent of jail deputies.
“When your percentages go down, and you already had low percentages, there’s nowhere to go,” Walker said.
At the same time the jail has lost female correctional deputies, it has seen a 33 percent increase in female inmates over the past 12 years, from 134 in 2002 to 178 in 2014, Bennett said.
The lack of female deputies has required the jail to keep closed since 2010 its female-only unit at the less-restrictive North County Detention Facility. An inmate filed a lawsuit in late 2013 claiming that she and other minimum-security women were being denied their right to equal protection by being confined to the main jail in Santa Rosa while minimum security men were allowed to stay in the North County facility.
In the suit, Charr Treadway said inmates at the North County facility enjoy different privileges, like sleeping in a dormitory environment and face-to-face visitation.
“What we’d like to see happen is that women return to North County,” said Walter Risse, a Santa Rosa lawyer who represents Treadway.
Bennett replied that some minimum security men are also being kept at the main Santa Rosa jail as well as the Alameda County Jail.
A Sonoma County judge took the case under submission last week after hearing arguments May 29, Risse said. He expects the judge to issue a written opinion within 30 days, if not sooner.
To address the need for more female deputies, jail officials launched a special recruitment effort in late 2013, reaching out to women at SSU and SRJC and advertising in policing groups, news outlets and social media. But even though eight new female correctional deputies have been hired, the jail still has fewer female deputies than it did in 2012, due to the departure of 10 women who retired or chose to work in other capacities, Walker said.
Despite applicant pools of hundreds of people, it’s proven difficult to find qualified women and men, officials said. Before someone can be hired to work as a correctional deputy, they must pass the following: An entry exam, oral interview, background check including drug history, and polygraph test.
“It’s easy to get people to come out and test, but it’s not easy to hire people,” Walker said. “There’s a certain criteria that we’re looking for.”
The jail hires about 3 percent of all the applicants it tests, Walker said. After that, new hires must still make it through training.
Another recruitment challenge has been a lack of awareness in the public about what the job entails, or a perception that the job is better suited to men, officials said.
But several women working at the jail said they’ve never felt out of place in the department.
Bennett, who has worked at the jail for 28 years, said the jail offers opportunities for women at every level. “Anybody walking in the door, in whatever position, can end up anywhere,” she said. Currently, Bennett is one of two captains. Two of eight lieutenants are women, and four of 20 sergeants are women.
Rublaitus said she thought lots of women might be interested in the job if they knew more about it.
The job can be hectic, she acknowledged, but she enjoys the challenge. Before coming to the jail seven years ago, she worked in hospitality. Wanting to change careers, she took a job in probation, where some former female correctional deputies told her about working in the jail. Once she heard the job description, she said, she knew it was for her.
“People think it’s a man’s job sometimes,” she said, “but not anymore.”