Santa Cruz County Sheriff Jim Hart recently addressed the state of public safety in the county. The sheriff stated that despite an increase in drug and alcohol related misdemeanors that overall crime in the county is at a 30 year low. Currently the county jail is acting as the county’s largest mental health and detoxification facility while dealing with overcrowding due to proposition 47’s prison realignment. It is hoped that the opening of the 24.6 million dollar minimum security rehabilitation and reentry facility opening in Aril at the Watsonville detention center will alleviate some of the overcrowding at the main jail.
