Inmates are dying, jail guards are breaking laws and sending racist texts, and worse, some may even be raping the men and women behind bars.

District Attorney Jeff Rosen declined to file charges against a county sheriff deputy who shot and killed a 61-year-old woman described as "crazy, evil, pissed, possessed" the night of the fatal encounter.

Santa Clara County won’t get the secret cell phone spying technology Sheriff Laurie Smith has been pushing the last year.

Extensive records requests San Jose Inside filed with law enforcement agencies across the Bay Area show that the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office has become ground zero for concealed weapon permit requests.

From what I recently witnessed while attending traffic court in Santa Clara County, there is nothing consistent or impartial about the way the court is conducting itself.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office plans to obtain cellphone spying equipment to track suspected criminals and find missing people.

Deadly encounters between police and citizens have increased in recent years. And while officer-involved shootings are nearly always ruled justified, mistakes are costly—both in lives and in the millions that the public pays to victims and their heirs.

Parents of Audrie Pott, the Saratoga teen who committed suicide after being sexually assaulted by classmates, are furious about a political mailer that makes it look like they support Kevin Jensen in the Santa Clara County sheriff’s race.

In the end, it took longer to put former county Supervisor George Shirakawa Jr. in jail than the time he actually served. But that might not be the case for long.

Elected officials in San Jose and Santa Clara County have expressed diplomatic, if not cautious, public support for a proposal that would have the Sheriff’s Office assist an undermanned San Jose Police Department. But behind the scenes, the two law enforcement agencies have been at odds for more than a year over services already contracted.

An independent expenditure committee supporting Kevin Jensen's bid for sheriff wrote a $2,500 check to Crime Victims United, an organization that subsequently endorsed Jensen just days after the latest filing period.

A complaint filed earlier this week alleges inconsistencies on sheriff candidate Kevin Jensen's campaign fundraising forms.

Santa Clara County jails have seen a sharp uptick in assaults over the past few years, partly because of state prison reforms that pushed more dangerous inmates to local correctional facilities.

A South Bay gun buyback became the third largest in the nation last weekend, when Santa Clara County traded $114,000 in cash for 1,116 firearms. Forty-seven of the guns were assault weapons, 479 handguns, 355 rifles and 235 shotguns. There’s still $36,000 leftover for a future buyback.

In the first five months of the fiscal year, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center’s on-call and overtime pay for doctors took a staggering leap, going from an average of less than $20,000 a month in 2011-12 to $967,000 this fiscal year. The Board of Supervisors will discuss the $1 billion health agency’s drastic uptick in costs—4,835-percent increase in per-month, on-call wages— as well as other issues at Tuesday’s meeting.

Metro Silicon Valley’s issue this week looks at possible candidates to succeed Mayor Chuck Reed when he terms out in less than two years. One possible candidate for San Jose mayor in 2014 is Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith.—Editor