El Paso County Sheriff | The jail camera project
El Paso County's largest surveillance purchase is $5,951,349.77 of cameras inside the Downtown Detention Facility, bought on a cooperative contract with county capital money and federal pandemic relief. The item names a project and a vendor and no equipment.
At a glance
- Cost
- $5,951,349.77 [1]
- Approved
- 12 September 2022, as item 16 on the regular agenda rather than on consent, moved by County Judge Samaniego and seconded by Commissioner Holguin, with no votes against [1]
- Vendor
- Stanley Convergent Security Solutions, Inc., of San Antonio, Texas [1]
- How it was bought
- On Sourcewell cooperative contract RFP 030421, a purchasing cooperative agreement used in place of a competitive bid. The Purchasing Department approved it on 25 August 2022 [1]
- Who paid
- The county's own capital improvement account for the Downtown Detention renovation, and its American Rescue Plan capital outlay account. The item is numbered American Rescue Plan Act Project 4030 [1]
- How many cameras
- Not stated in the item. No equipment schedule appears in the record we read [2]
- What the cameras can do
- Not stated. The record does not say whether the project includes video analytics, and does not say whether any camera views an area outside the facility [2]
- How long recordings are kept
- Not stated in any county record we read [2]
How it happened
- Procurement
Cameras at the jail annex
Item T of the consent agenda authorized the Purchasing Agent to solicit requests for proposals for Sheriff's Office Jail Annex surveillance camera improvements, the specifications having been approved by the purchasing review panel a fortnight earlier. [3]
- Procurement
Cameras at the juvenile center
Item W of the consent agenda authorized the Purchasing Agent to advertise a request for proposals for a security camera system upgrade at the Juvenile Justice Center. [4]
- Procurement
Six million dollars, voted on its own
Item 16 on the regular agenda approved the purchase of the Downtown Detention Facility Surveillance Project on Sourcewell contract RFP 030421, awarded to Stanley Convergent Security Solutions, Inc. of San Antonio, for $5,951,349.77, funded from the county's Downtown Detention renovation capital account and its American Rescue Plan capital outlay account. Unlike almost every other surveillance purchase in this county's record, it was not in the consent block. [1]
The largest amount El Paso County has spent on surveillance in the period its meeting record covers was not spent on a street. It was spent inside a jail.
On 12 September 2022 the Commissioners Court approved the Downtown Detention Facility Surveillance Project for $5,951,349.77. The vendor is Stanley Convergent Security Solutions of San Antonio. The purchase was made on Sourcewell contract RFP 030421, a cooperative purchasing agreement, which under Texas law satisfies the requirement to seek competitive bids without a bid being sought. The money came from two places: the county’s capital account for renovating the Downtown Detention Facility, and its American Rescue Plan capital outlay account, the federal pandemic relief fund. The item carries the county’s own project number for that fund, 4030.
One thing about this purchase is unlike the rest of the county’s record. It was not on the consent agenda. It was item 16 on the regular agenda, moved by the County Judge, seconded by Commissioner Holguin, and voted on by itself. The county’s plate readers, its phone extraction tool, its membership of a federal intelligence center and its jail call monitoring grant all passed inside a consent block. This one did not.
What the record does not say
It does not say how many cameras. It does not say what software runs them, whether the system does any kind of automated analysis of what it sees, or how long a recording is kept. It does not say whether any camera under the project looks at an area outside the facility. The item is a project name, a vendor, a contract number and a price.
Cameras inside a jail are not the same question as cameras on a road. A detention facility is a place where the county is responsible for the safety of people it is holding, and a camera there can protect them as easily as watch them. Which of those a six million dollar system does depends entirely on details that are not in the public record: what it records, how long it keeps it, who can pull it up, and what happens to footage of an incident.
The county has bought jail cameras before. In May 2014 it sought proposals for surveillance camera improvements at the Sheriff’s Office Jail Annex, and in December 2014 for a security camera system upgrade at the Juvenile Justice Center. Neither item says what was installed either.
What we do not know
- How many cameras the project installed, and what software runs them.
- Whether the system includes video analytics of any kind.
- Whether any camera under the project views an area outside the facility.
- How long recordings are kept, and who may view them.
- What the 2014 jail annex and juvenile center camera procurements bought.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in El Paso County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in El Paso County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
- 1. El Paso County Commissioners Court, agenda package, 12 September 2022, item 16 and its recorded motion · Meeting record · · accessed
- 2.
- 3. El Paso County Commissioners Court, minutes, 19 May 2014, consent item T · Meeting record · · accessed
- 4. El Paso County Commissioners Court, minutes, 15 December 2014, consent item W · Meeting record · · accessed
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