‘Human Dog Pound’ : Orange County Jail Full to Overflowing

In the day room of Cellblock C, inmates plunk down bedrolls anywhere they can find empty patches of concrete. In the shower and toilet rooms, some men sleep next to the bars, to stay out of foot traffic. Others sleep between the row of aluminum toilets and the sinks.

In Cellblock D, also on the third floor, two dozen inmates watch television in the day room as a dozen others sleep on mats on the floor, some with towels over their eyes to block out the light.

On the fourth floor, in Cellblock F, 21 prisoners sleep on “the beach,” an eight-foot-wide strip along the front of the dormitory cell. An inmate on work detail on the beach above carelessly sweeps debris down on two of them. The inmates don’t seem to notice.

In one day room, 19-year-old Alexander Sims, a burglary suspect from Yorba Linda, had just been asleep on his mat at the feet of a dozen prisoners standing at the bars griping about conditions.

“This is the first time in five days I got a place to stretch out and not have my feet on somebody,” Sims said. “I ain’t complainin’ about nothin.”

The Orange County Jail is overflowing with inmates.

Today, Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates faces a U.S. District Court judge who seven years ago ordered that every inmate have a bunk.

Earlier this month, Gates for the first time permitted a reporter to take extended tours of the men’s jail. The Times visited the jail on March 2, 7 and 15.

The inmates call it a human dog pound. It is one of the most overcrowded jails in the state.

“It’s not a fit condition, but we’re doing all we can,” said Assistant Sheriff Thad Dwyer, who accompanied The Times’ reporter on two visits. “I don’t know that it’s a dog pound, but I don’t have to live in there.”

Jail Commander George King, who was along on all three tours, was quick to defend his operation of the jail. But he also empathized with the prisoners.

“They don’t adjust to it; they simply endure,” King said. “This is not how it’s supposed to be.”

The capacity is supposed to be 1,191 men. The sheriff’s office says that on most days the count is near 2,000 and often higher. The count was slightly above 2,000 on all three days that The Times toured the jail.

Jail officials say they are doing the best they can under those circumstances. On each shift, about 28 deputies run the jail. King said he needs 45 to 50 per shift to do the job right.

Pressured by ACLU

Gates has been under pressure from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) on the overcrowding issue almost from the time he took office in 1975. In 1978, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray, acting on an ACLU lawsuit against Gates, ordered numerous changes at the jail. The most important one was that each inmate be allowed his own bunk.

Today, Gray has scheduled a hearing in Los Angeles, based on a new action against Gates by the ACLU, to determine whether the sheriff is in contempt for not living up to the 1978 order.

Gates insists he’s not in contempt because he has little control over the flow of inmates through his jail.

Gates maintains the conditions are livable. But he does acknowledge that the overcrowding is a serious problem.

Jail records show that there are few days when the overcrowding eases.

After booking, inmates go to the first floor receiving tank, where they wait to be assigned a spot on the third and fourth floors.

They get a green, three-inch-thick foam rubber mat, two sheets and a blanket. When they reach their floors, a cell door opens and they are told to find a place to sleep.

Most go to large dormitory cells where double bunks have replaced single bunks. The inmates sleep in the connecting day rooms because the bunks are always filled. When the day room floor fills, they sleep in the toilet and shower rooms.

The jail has five floors. But only two of them are for housing.

The first floor includes administration, visiting area, the attorney-bail bonds room and the receiving area. The basement includes support services, such as clothing and mail rooms, and the kitchen. The second floor is the medical ward. During the Times’ visits, its single cells were full. Some housed two inmates, and some of the double cells housed four.

“To cut down on crowding on the third and fourth floors, I could put inmates on the other floors,” King said. “But where on those floors? There just isn’t room unless you cut back services.”

That puts all the pressure on the third and fourth floors.

Steve Moore, 31, of Garden Grove, serving time for failing to pay child support, was lying under a friend’s bunk, his nose two inches from the other man’s mattress springs.

“It ain’t much, but it beats the toilets,” Moore said.

To relieve the crowding, jail officials sometimes let inmates sleep on the beach in front of the cells. Some inmates prefer it because it is less claustrophobic. Others hate it because inmates above throw water and trash on them.

Cells Dirty

The cells are dirty and cluttered with trash. The smell of sweat is stronger than the ammonia that is used to clean the floors.

Forty men mill about in a day room not much bigger than a living room. The television watchers have to step over sleeping inmates to get around. The sleeping inmates search for corners to avoid getting kicked.

When a reporter passes, the inmates crowd to the bars like paupers in the old debtors’ prisons and shout out their pent-up hostilities.

“This place is a time bomb about to go off,” said James Brindley, 26, who is serving 30 days for a traffic offense. Others shouted agreement.

“I wouldn’t let my dog live like this,” said Tim Johnson, 19, of Seal Beach, who is awaiting trial on an auto theft charge.

“Look at us; does anyone deserve to live like this?” pleaded George Gibson, 26, of Huntington Beach, a burglary suspect.

They complain that their mass-living arrangement is a breeding ground for health problems.

“It’s so goddamned unsanitary,” said David Rose, 32, of Tustin, a robbery suspect. “But no one cares, so we’re just stuck.”

They are upset over lack of toilet paper, soap and cleaning materials to keep the grime out of the showers and sinks. They complain they can’t get medical attention or proper dental work. They say they can’t take the tension of being packed together.

Jail officials say prisoners are provided with the necessities. But they say all of the inmate frustrations are the result of the sheer numbers--too many inmates in too little space.

“When we first opened the new jail (in 1968), we were proud to bring people through on tours to show them what we had,” said Assistant Sheriff Dwyer, who oversees operations at the jail. “Now it’s all we can do to keep the place sanitary.”

Inmates are assigned cells according to a classification system that ranks the men partly according to previous jail behavior. Sometimes, but not always, the severity of the crime they are charged with is a factor. The dormitories are for those inmates classified as “lightweights,” which could include robbers, drug dealers and even murder defendants. “Hard-core” prisoners are either in eight-man cells (many housing up to 15 men) or in single cells. The single cells also include people in protective custody. Those are child molesters, rapists, jailhouse informants or other people who might be targets of attack by other inmates.

Most new arrivals go to the four dormitories.

Tom Grady, 33, of Huntington Beach, recalled that when he was first arrested in 1971 on a drunk-driving charge, he was housed in the upper tank of Cellblock C. There were 40 men then in single bunks.

Now Grady is back in that same cell, on another drunk-driving charge. This time there are no single bunks, only doubles. Grady is on a mat next to a toilet; he has been there more than a week.

Robert Sanchez, 26, of Santa Ana, serving 60 days for driving with a suspended license, has been in a day room for 45 days. Carl Birell, 30, of Costa Mesa, awaiting trial on a drug charge, has slept on the day room floor for 42 days.

“You do it because you have no goddamned choice,” Birell said. “What can you do but just live with it?”

During one visit, 72 bunks filled a dormitory in Cellblock C, which was built for 40 bunks. Another 59 sleeping mats covered the floor.

Inmates said newcomers start by sleeping in the toilet room and work their way up by seniority to the shower room, then the day room, then a bunk. The only way to bypass that system is to “buy” a bunk, inmates said. Upper bunks, for example, are sold for two cartons of cigarettes, or some other commissary items, by the man in the lower bunk.

Commander King said few men are ever housed in the toilet areas. The inmates responded that King doesn’t know what really goes on.

On two of The Times’ visits March 2 and 7, the toilet and shower areas were crammed with sleeping men but no one was on the beach. On the third visit, on March 15, when a photographer was along, the beaches were crowded, but the toilet and shower rooms were cleared. King’s only restriction was to prohibit pictures of one inmate who was sleeping in a toilet room. He said the man wasn’t supposed to be there.

The beaches alleviate overcrowding in the dormitories, but King prefers not to use them. Sleeping on the beach violates the state fire code, he said.

Overcrowding creates problems for the entire jail operation.

Inmates complain that fights among prisoners break out every night, simply because of the tension created by too many people in a small space.

“It’s difficult to follow up on,” said Lt. David Mann, one of the jail watch commanders. “You ask a guy how he got a black eye, and he won’t say. But you know he’s had a fight.”

Inmates also complain of mistreatment by the deputies. King admits some incidents have occurred, but he denies that mistreatment is the norm.

Mistreatment Alleged

Several inmates said they witnessed mistreatment of a prisoner who was having a seizure. The deputies cursed him, shackled him and carried him off, the inmates said. The inmate, William Hall, 26, of Newport Beach, who has been moved to another cell, said the deputies “carried me off like a six-pack of beer.”

Watch commander Mann said he did not believe Hall was mistreated. “I didn’t see that incident, but I’ve seen several seizures here, and in all of them the deputies did the best they could for the inmate,” Mann said.

Sgt. Rich White, a shift commander on the fourth floor, said mistreatment is “a matter of perspective.”

“When an inmate wants something, he wants it right away; sometimes the deputy is just too busy to respond,” White said. “So the inmate thinks he’s mistreated. You do hear the deputies call the inmates names, but usually it’s in response to a stream of name-calling from the inmate. The deputies are human. They can get sick of it after awhile.”

During The Times’ visits there were fewer complaints about deputy treatment from inmates in the eight-man cells, which generally house more seasoned prisoners.

“The deputies know they can shove those newcomers around,” said Fernando Gonzales, 29, a parole violator from Santa Ana who has been in jail three times. “They know better than to try that with us.”

Mann and other deputies acknowledge that the overcrowding strains inmate-deputy relations.

When the jail opened in 1968, “there were a lot fewer inmates, and there was a mutual respect that’s difficult to come up with now,” Mann said.

Overcrowding also affects recreation time in the jail. Inmates are required to make a minimum of three visits a week to the roof where there are basketball courts and table tennis tables. But most inmates interviewed laughed when asked if they get at least three roof visits a week.

“We’re lucky if we get up there once a week,” said one inmate.

One problem is that protective custody inmates must go to the roof alone or in small numbers. That means that sometimes just eight or nine men are on the roof; at other times it’s nearly 100. With that many men on the roof, said one deputy, there’s enough room to get fresh air but not enough to exercise.

Problem of Feeding

Feeding the inmates is another problem. The dining room holds less than 200. A second dining room is shut down because Gates doesn’t have the personnel to man it.

Serving of meals begins shortly after 5 a.m. and doesn’t end until 8 p.m. There is little time between meals when the dining room is empty.

And overcrowding limits the visiting schedule. Currently, visits are allowed five days a week. King said he wants to have visiting hours seven days a week but that the jail has neither the facilities nor the manpower for it.

But the biggest problem with overcrowding, King and other jail officials say, is finding a place for inmates to sleep.

Most inmates interviewed agree with 19-year-old Johnson in Cellblock C, who said the crowded condition “wears on your nerves.”

“When I first came here, I was scared to death,” Johnson said. “Now I’m just numb. I really wonder if the public knows what this place is like.”