Block Urges Action to Cut Jail Crowding

Overcrowded jail conditions “unequaled in the history of our county or any other county in the state” prompted Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block on Friday to suggest several ways of speeding up the local criminal court system, including the use of courtrooms at night.

Noting that the county’s jails house more than 17,000 inmates, rather than the 11,000 they were built for, Block wrote Los Angeles County Superior Court Presiding Judge Thomas T. Johnson that the crowding has sharply curtailed his department’s ability to provide proper medical and mental health care or even to clothe, feed and supervise them.

“Because of the slowness of our extremely litigious court process and the ability of defendants and attorneys to manipulate the court system,” Block said in his letter, “we have hundreds of inmates who should be in state prison but remain in our County Jail.”

The presiding judge, while sharing the sheriff’s desire to prevent the jail population from piling up, pointed out that some of Block’s suggestions are easier made than executed.

As for utilizing courtrooms at night, Johnson responded: “We don’t have any judicial officers who aren’t already working full-time. . . . We need new people. We don’t have any budget for staffing night courts or building new courtrooms. Right now we’re doing with what we have.”

The sheriff said the nature of the County Jail population has begun to resemble that of a state prison, with a sharp increase in the number of suspects in murders and other violent crimes, as well as more parole violators awaiting return to state prison.

“We have approximately 800 known gang members from over 200 gang factions,” the sheriff told Johnson. “This situation vastly complicates the safety issue for inmates, deputies and civilian employees.”

The severe crowding, he added, “has significantly escalated tensions and anxieties, resulting in sharply increased numbers of conflicts among the inmates themselves, as well as between inmates and staff.”

Block said the overcrowding has grown worse despite such measures as reopening the Hall of Justice, Biscailuz Center and Mira Loma jail facilities.

While he believes that “the exploding jail and prison populations are a significant factor in the decrease in crime rates in our communities,” Block said something must be done to jog a court system that “has become bogged down with delays, entangled with continuances, trivialized with technicalities and flooded with motions.”

Supervisor Kenneth Hahn said he will propose to his fellow board members on Tuesday that Gov. George Deukmejian be urged to use his “power and prestige” to have Army barracks and other facilities made available for the housing of county inmates.

“This is dangerous,” Hahn said. “This is a crisis.”

Among the cases Block cited was that of a murder suspect still in County Jail awaiting sentencing, although he was arraigned in May, 1983, and was convicted a year later after receiving 40 continuances.

To help reduce the inmate population, Block recommended that courtrooms currently used only during regular business hours be opened in the evenings, using some of the money now earmarked for added courtrooms to provide nighttime staffing.

Also, Block suggested:

- Judges should grant only those continuances that are “absolutely necessary.”

- Private attorneys should voluntarily refrain from seeking non-essential continuances.

- The district attorney should be urged to “vigorously contest” unnecessary continuances.

- The County Probation Department should do what it can to speed up those hearings that will result either in defendants going to prison or being released on probation.

- State parole officials should give priority to those hearings that will send parole violators back to prison more quickly.

“I join him (the sheriff) in thinking that a speeding up of the court process could save some jail times,” Johnson said. “I join him in thinking that some people who are going to end up in state prison should be there as soon as it can be worked out.”

But he contended that there are no judges or other court officials available to work nights, even if the money were on hand.