Draft:Howard Patrick Gleason

Howard Patrick “Jack” Gleason (1890-1967) served as Sheriff of Alameda County, California from 1940 through 1963.  H. P. “Jack” Gleason was the longest serving Sheriff in Alameda County history.  Appointed in 1940 and subsequently elected to office, he retired in 1963.  As the 17th Sheriff, he served through dramatic changes in the county which had huge impacts on law enforcement.  He may have been one of the most consequential Alameda County Sheriffs due to his attempts to incorporate rehabilitation into incarceration.  He also sought to improve law enforcement training and professionalization in his department and in the Northern California region.  He established the original Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center near Dublin in 1947.

Early Life

Gleason was born in Johnstown, Fulton County, New York on August 31, 1893.  He attended school there and played baseball while in high school. His family moved to Oakland in 1909.

Early Adulthood

According to some sources, Gleason played semi-pro baseball until 1917.  He enlisted in the Navy that year and served in several locations, including aboard the USS Chattanooga (Cruiser No. 16) and USS Wilhelmina (ID 2168). He left service in 1920.  While in the Navy, it is said he served in the Asiatic fleet. He completed service as a Chief Boatswain’s Mate.

Gleason played professional baseball with the Pittsburg Pirates and St. Louis Browns from 1920 through 1922. Another newspaper article said he had played with “several minor league teams, and in 1923 an injured knee put him on the shelf for all time."

In late 1922 he returned to Oakland and found a position with the Oakland Tribune.  He later became manager of the Circulation Department for the paper. He married Anne Ziehn in 1928. In 1936 he resigned and became a deputy sheriff in Alameda County.

Throughout the 1930s he was prominent in veterans’ organizations and Republican party activities.

Law Enforcement Career

Gleason joined the Sheriff’s Office as a deputy and served in a number of positions.  A 1941 article noted that Gleason “… has served in virtually all departments of the sheriff’s office, his most recent assignment being bailiff in Superior Judge John D. Murphy’s Court." Gleason was appointed by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors as Under-Sheriff on July 1, 1940, in part to support ailing Sheriff Mchael B. Driver. In November Sheriff Driver resigned due to ill health. The Alameda County Board of Supervisors appointed Gleason as Sheriff on November 28, 1940.

During the next 22 years Gleason easily won re-election.  During his tenure he was credited with a number of accomplishments.  He negotiated the transfer of a former US Navy Disciplinary Barracks to replace the former county jail. He established the Santa Rita Rehabilitation Center in 1947 which eventually incorporated innovations including a women’s division, clinics for alcoholics and drug addicts, and the first full-time county prison chaplain. For a time, Santa Rita was considered one of the state’s most well-run county jails. Rehabilitation efforts included a fully functioning farm whose efforts provided goods and services that offset a majority of the county jail’s cost.  Other accomplishments included establishing the first county crime laboratory, the first introduction of two-person patrol cars with two-way radio communication to the California Department of Motor Vehicles, establishing a 40 hour work week for field deputies, hiring the first African American deputy sheriff, promoting the first African American captain, and promoting the first woman captain. Gleason also helped organize the first peace officers’ training school in Norther California. He was the President, National Sheriff’s Association, for the 1956/57 and 1957/58 terms.

Sheriff Gleason retired on January 1, 1963. He was succeeded as Sheriff by Frank Madigan.  Jack Gleason died on March 4, 1967.