Oneida County sheriff: Recruitment, retention hard part of job

With a $49.38 million budget and 540 employees across three divisions, Oneida County Sheriff Robert Maciol said the last three years for the Sheriff’s Office have been some of the most challenging they’ve faced.

“And not just the Sheriff’s Office, but all of law enforcement,” Maciol said. “We’re coming out of the pandemic, and that’s its own challenge, but you’ve got bail reform, the HALT act, discovery, Raise the Age… All of these, I think, had good intentions but were rolled out in such a manner and such a quick manner that I don’t think the authors realized the negative effect they’d have on law enforcement.”

Coupled with the legalization of marijuana and new legislation being considered to give certain inmates over the age of 55 parole eligibility, Maciol said that law enforcement has been struggling with recruitment and retention efforts.

“You’ll hear it from every police chief and sheriff’s office,” he said. “Recruitment and retention. It’s hard to recruit people when you tell them everything that’s going to happen… But this career, in my opinion, is one of the most rewarding, knowing you’re going to make a positive difference somewhere.”

And while there are 90 vacant positions left to be filled at the Oneida County Corrections Facility and vacancies on road patrol, Maciol said that he’s proud of the commitment and dedication of the 500 people who work for the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office.

Maciol said they do their job with pride despite all the challenges and high standards they’re held to.

Crime Data

In the Oneida County Sheriff's Office 2023 report, there were a total of 4,853 calls, including 1,140 alarms/open doors, 1,035 suspicious activity calls, and 949 domestic/family offenses taking the top three. There were a total of 4,612 traffic summons and 2,201 motor vehicle accidents — 13 fatal.

Maciol said when it comes to crime data, he feels it doesn’t paint a total picture.

“Many downstate legislators will tout crime numbers, saying that they’re down or there’s a trend that they’re going down. But that’s not reality,” Maciol said. “We’ve got big chain stores no longer reporting shoplifting because they don’t want their employees involved and that there aren’t going to be any consequences for the people being charged. Just because the data says that fewer people are shoplifting, it’s because it’s not being reported.”

Instead of numbers and statistics, Maciol said he's more concerned with whether or not people feel safe. And with changes to bail reform, Maciol said people are feeling less safe — especially victims of domestic assault.

“We had a victim of domestic violence, where the significant other put a machete to her throat,” Maciol said. “The person was charged with menacing, and because of bail reform, they were released from police custody. The victim needed to find a safe place to live because the offender was going back to the house.”

While Maciol is against bail reform in its current state, he said he’s not against criminal justice reform and welcomes it.

“[Criminal justice reform] is not a bad thing,” he said. “[And in this case] It came about because of [Kalief Browder], who was held at Rikers Island for three years. And while held, he didn’t get any representation and was subject to physical and sexual assault. And after he was released, he took his own life.”

While Maciol said that criminal justice reform needed to be established, he felt the reform should have first occurred at Rikers Island.

According to the Center for Justice Innovation in a 2022 report, around nine in 10 people at Rikers have not been convicted of a crime and are awaiting trial. In an August 2023 report from the New York City Comptroller’s office, in 2022, Rikers Island held 6,182 people, and of those, 5,403 people were detained pretrial, representing 87% of the jail population. One-in-five people were held on monetary bail

As such, the right to a speedy trial is hampered.

“This was a problem at Rikers Island, a problem that doesn’t happen at New York City Jails, and thrust this massive change in bail across the state,” Maciol said. “And the frustrating thing to sheriffs, whether it’s bail reform, the SAFE act, or other legislation, we just want a seat at the table.”

Maciol felt that sheriffs, police chiefs, prosecutors, and public defenders should be, at the very least, included in conversations when it comes to criminal justice reform.

And while it’s looking like bail reform won’t be repealed, Maciol said law enforcement can lobby for some minor changes that could help. And more than anything, Maciol would like to see judges be given discretion and that if they determine someone to be dangerous and a threat to the community, to be held.

“If someone poses harm to the victim, someone else in society, or to themselves, we should be able to hold them,” Maciol said.

This article originally appeared on Observer-Dispatch: Oneida County Sheriff Maciol talks law enforcement challenges