Sheriff's Oversight Committee

Overview

Recent legislation, commonly referred to as Assembly Bill 1185 (AB 1185) and effective January 2021, authorizes the County to create a sheriff oversight board and an office of inspector general, and grants the bodies subpoena power enforceable by court action. The bill was created to provide oversight and increased accountability for sheriffs across the state.

This legislation, in conjunction with a recent leadership change at the Marin County Sheriff’s Office (Sheriff’s Office), presents a unique opportunity to receive community feedback to continuously improve the Sheriff’s Office operations.

The County of Marin and the Board of Supervisors will establish an independent community oversight structure for the Sheriff’s Office, with the goal of cultivating trust, transparency and accountability. A community engagement process will take place through April 2023 to gather community input on a meaningful framework and structure for this independent body, which will be known as the AB 1185 Sheriff’s Oversight Committee.

The Working Group will share their draft recommendations with the Board of Supervisors in April 2023. Please refer to the Board of Supervisors website for the exact date and agenda of this meeting. We will also update this website with the specific date of the meeting once it is finalized. Community members who wish to provide public comment are encouraged to attend that meeting.

The County of Marin contracted with the National Association for Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement (NACOLE) to design and facilitate our process. If you would like to learn more about civilian oversight basics, please visit this website.

Community Engagement

The County recently conducted a multilingual survey, encouraging community members to share ideas and priorities on what civilian oversight of law enforcement should look like in Marin County. In addition, we conducted nine focus groups in January 2023 with a focus on youth, students, communities of color and communities disproportionately impacted by the criminal legal system. The goal of these focus groups was to gather feedback on oversight models and priorities. Summary findings from both the survey and focus groups are included below:

• Focus Group memo
• Preliminary Survey Results

Community Conversations

The County of Marin hosted three initial community conversations to collect input on your lived experiences with law enforcement, priorities for oversight, and strategies to enhance law enforcement accountability. These meetings were conducted via videoconference. View the meeting recordings below.

• Tuesday, 11/1, 6:00 – 8:00 pm
  • English
  • Spanish
• Thursday, 11/3, 6:00 – 8:00 pm>
  • English
  • Spanish
  • Vietnamese
• Saturday, 11/5, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
  • English
  • Spanish
  • Vietnamese

Community Outreach Working Group

In September 2022, 15 individuals were selected to join the Community Outreach Working Group. They were selected based on criteria including lived or professional experience related to justice, police oversight, law, community organizing, research, finance, and other relevant areas; as well as with consideration to creating a work group that is diverse, inclusive, and representative of the community.

The Community Outreach Working Group will assist with promoting the community engagement process among constituents; conducting outreach; and providing feedback on draft products and framework options.

• Roster of AB 1185 Community Outreach Working Group
• Meeting #1 (10/17/22): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #2 (10/25/22): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #3 (11/15/22): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #4 (11/29.22): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #5 (1/3/23): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #6 (1/17/23): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #7 (1/31/23): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #8 (2/15/23): Agenda and Meeting Materials
• Meeting #9 (2/21/23): Agenda
• Meeting #10 (2/27/23): Agenda
• Meeting #11 (3/21/23): Meeting Summary