The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office logged a small drop in use-of-force incidents in 2025, but the latest report comes with a grim footnote: one deputy-involved fatality after none the year before. The agency counted 603 uses of force in 2025, down from 621 in 2024, even as chemical agents remained a go-to tool in county jails and community advocates continued to warn about racial disparities.
What the report counts
The sheriff’s annual report treats a wide range of tactics as uses of force, including firearms, chemical agents, physical takedowns, punching and kicking, Tasers and batons, and it tracks injuries to both people in custody and staff, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office. For 2025, the report lists 603 total incidents and notes 181 deployments of chemical agents in the jails, down from 240 in 2024. It also shows that fewer people were transported to hospitals after force incidents in 2025 compared with the prior year.
Where force happened and who it hit
Most of the force did not happen on the street, but behind bars. Jail-related incidents involved 769 people, while field incidents involved roughly 117 people, according to San José Spotlight. The data also show Latinos were overrepresented: they made up more than half of the sheriff’s 5,069 arrests last year, even though they represent about 25% of the county’s population. Sheriff officials reported that use-of-force incidents trended downward at both the Main Jail in San Jose and the Elmwood facilities in Milpitas.
Sheriff credits training and Tasers
Sheriff Bob Jonsen has been quick to credit policy tweaks rather than luck. He cited stepped-up training in de-escalation, crisis intervention and tactical decision-making as key reasons for the overall decline. “Over the past several years, our office has strengthened training in deescalation, crisis intervention, communication techniques and tactical decision making,” Jonsen said, as reported by SFGATE. He also pointed to the Board of Supervisors' March 2025 decision to allow Tasers in correctional settings; the report shows 17 Taser uses in 2025.
Community groups push back
Community advocates say the story looks very different from the ground level. They argue that raw numbers do not answer fundamental questions about who is subjected to force in the first place and why. “Chemical agents are being used on folks who probably shouldn't be incarcerated in the first place,” Jose Valle of Silicon Valley De-Bug told San José Spotlight, urging the county to invest more heavily in education and reentry support. Activists also note that a looming $470 million budget shortfall for fiscal 2026–27 could make broader reforms even harder to pull off.
Oversight and legal pressure
The sheriff’s office is still operating under two federal consent decrees intended to improve medical care and conditions in the jails, and outside monitors and advocates are keeping close tabs on its progress. The Prison Law Office has filed motions pressing for contempt over what it describes as slow compliance, and the county’s Office of Correction and Law Enforcement Monitoring (OCLEM) has issued critical reviews of how the sheriff reports use-of-force data, according to the Prison Law Office and OCLEM.
At the same time, Jonsen is pushing to expand the Taser program while county leaders weigh plans for a new jail and confront difficult budget choices. The latest report and follow-up oversight reviews are expected to surface at upcoming public meetings, according to the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office.
