A virtual fence will be constructed around the William F. James
Boys Ranch in Morgan Hill within a month.
A virtual fence will be constructed around the William F. James Boys Ranch in Morgan Hill within a month.
The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to install electronic surveillance equipment at the ranch and instructed county staff to have the system in place in 30 days. And though county officials believed as recently as last week that a GPS system would solve the runaway problem, the county may now install a chain link and razor wire fence as well on the grounds.
“The problem is people in the neighborhood still feel unsafe,” Supervisor Don Gage said. “I feel very good that we haven’t had a (violent) problem in the neighborhood, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have a problem in the future. The goal is zero escapes. Until I see zero, I’m not going to be satisfied.”
The GPS system will be provided by Satellite Tracking of People, a Houston company, at a cost of $410,000 annually. The price includes monitoring equipment and two anklets for every ward at the ranch, which can house as many as 96 youths.
Chief Probation Officer Sheila Mitchell said the company is the only one in the nation that manufactures one-piece ankle tracking devices. She said the devices pinpoint location within 30 feet. In contrast to two community meetings held in Morgan Hill, there were few comments Tuesday from residents who live in housing developments that have sprouted around the ranch in recent years.
Two speakers voiced support for the virtual fence, but two neighbors said that while a GPS tracking system may make wards easier to find, it won’t prevent them from running.
“I’m not interested in offenders being caught somewhere in our neighborhood,” Cherie Bourlard said. “The system is doomed to failure. The boys will figure out a way to circumvent the system.”
Bourlard pointed out that a resurgence of escapes in the last week indicates that ranch wards have figured out how to avoid the sheriff’s deputies that have patrolled the sprawling grounds along Malaguerra Avenue since a gang fight in January led to four escapes. That incident outraged community members who have castigated county officials for not taking the runaway problem seriously in the past.
There were no escapes in February, and only two in March, but since April 1, 11 wards have run away from the ranch, three of them in the early morning hours. Ranch staff has said previously that youths rarely tried to escape at night. The sheriff’s deputies had been posted during the day only.
In response to the recent escapes, two additional probation security staff were added to the graveyard shift last week. Also, the Sheriff’s office has assigned a graveyard shift deputy (a K-9 unit) for security.
Ranch wards are between 15 and 18 years old and are sentenced to 120-day terms. Nearly a third of the 1,068 boys sent to the ranch since 2000 have been convicted of a “serious crime against people,” a category that includes assault with a deadly weapon. The ranch has housed arsonists, car thieves and boys convicted of date rape and committing lewd acts with children younger than 14. The ranch has averaged more than one escape per week in that time.
Resident Susan Cervantes said Tuesday that concern for her children’s safety far outweighs concerns that a fence around the ranch will lower property values and foster a prison-like atmosphere at the ranch.
“I’m not confident with the (GPS) system. I want a fence,” Cervantes said. “There have been comments about how it would look in the neighborhood. Frankly, I don’t care. I want a sure thing. I want something that will protect my children.”
Gage has said in the past that the county received prohibitive estimates of $3 million to $5 million to construct a security fence around the entire ranch, but Tuesday the supervisors voted to direct staff to explore erecting a fence around ranch buildings, making it harder for wards to run out the front door, as some did last week.
Gage cautioned, though, that no fence, whether virtual or ringed with razor wire, will solve the ranch’s runaway problem.
“That’s not foolproof either,” he said of a metal fence. “If they’re smart enough to alter a device on their ankle, they’re going to be smart enough to climb a fence.”
Supervisor Blanca Alvarado voted in favor of the GPS system, but abstained from the vote to explore additional fencing. She called GPS a “good idea” but said she feared the county was addressing only the symptoms of the runaway problem.
“We need to take a hard look at why this is an expanding situation,” she said. “These temporary solutions alleviate the problem, but don’t really deal with the problem.”
Mitchell responded that her staff continues to evaluate ranch programs to prevent future runaways.
Matt King covers Santa Clara County for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7240 or [email protected]
