Jail Panelists Would Transfer ‘Low-Risk’ Prisoners to Camp

A county task force decided Friday to recommend transfer of up to 200 “low-risk” offenders to the Los Pinos Forestry Camp near Lake Elsinore and expanded work release programs as ways to relieve overcrowding at the Orange County Jail, panelists said.

The task force also agreed to recommend that defendants who fail to appear in court in minor cases, such as traffic offenses, not be arrested but contacted first in an effort to persuade them to cooperate.

The Board of Supervisors will be asked Tuesday to authorize the purchase or lease of temporary trailers for Los Pinos, according to task force members. The trailers would supplement the currently inadequate kitchen and lavatory facilities, and the camp’s gymnasium would house the new inmates, according to task force members.

Two-Hour, Closed Meeting

Following a two-hour, closed- door task force meeting in the County Hall of Administration in Santa Ana, panel members said several measures are still under consideration, including use of the huge but mostly vacant Chet Hollifield federal office building (known as the Ziggurat) in Laguna Hills for work-furlough inmates, and reactivating the county’s now defunct parole board, along with other measures.

Task force members refused to discuss how many recommendations were agreed upon at Friday’s meeting.

“Quite frankly, we may have to recommend use of some facilities that will be unpopular with certain groups of residents near those facilities, and we don’t want to alarm anyone in advance of any actions that the Board of Supervisors might decide to take,” said acting County Administrative Officer Larry Holms before the session had even begun.

A final written report summarizing the task force’s recommendations will be completed Monday for presentation to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Holms said.

Panel Named by Supervisors

Some residents of Trabuco Canyon have petitioned county supervisors not to place additional inmates at the nearby Joplin-Portrero Boys’ Camp in Rose Canyon.

Task force members declined to discuss what action they took on the Joplin proposal.

The six-member panel was appointed by the Board of Supervisors last month after a federal judge ordered a reduction in jail overcrowding.

U.S. District Judge William P. Gray in Los Angeles found Sheriff Brad Gates and the five county supervisors in criminal contempt for not complying with his 1978 order that all inmates at the men’s jail be provided a bunk or bed.

Gray also fined the county $50,000, plus $10 per day for each inmate who has to sleep on the floor for more than one night. But Gray stayed the $10-per-day order for 60 days to give Gates time to try to reduce the jail population. The judge also appointed a special master to monitor jail operations.

About 400 inmates sleep on the floor during periods of peak overcrowding, according to county officials.

Gates has barred federal prisoners from the facility and the county has transferred some inmates under mental health care to other facilities.

Paul Carey, executive assistant to Board Chairman Thomas F. Riley, and Deputy County Counsel Arthur C. Wahlstedt, who represented their respective bosses at Friday’s meeting, said no formal votes were taken but a consensus had been reached on several options.

“We decided that we could take some short-term, low-risk offenders and put them at Los Pinos, which will free up some space at the Theo Lacy minimum security facility for some medium-risk inmates from the jail,” Wahlstedt said.

Assignment to Work Crews

“We’re also looking at taking some inmates who currently serve weekend sentences and placing them in other kinds of housing, and taking some people out of the prison system altogether by eliminating the need for them to report there at all--such as assigning them directly to work crews,” he added.

“The task force is also recommending that people who have outstanding arrest warrants for such minor things as unpaid traffic fines or other similar offenses be contacted and persuaded to honor their commitments instead of having them arrested and taken to jail.”

Asked if the panel was going to recommend temporary housing for some inmates in Quonset huts, Wahlstedt replied:

“The phrase Quonset huts was never spoken in there.”

He declined to elaborate.

Ziggurat Use Problematical

The proposal to use the 1-million-square-foot Ziggurat, a “white elephant” the U.S. government has tried unsuccessfully to sell, “still has to have a lot of work done on it,” Wahlstedt said.

Behavioral Systems Southwest of Pomona has proposed serving as a private jailer under contract to the county to handle about 120 inmates at the Ziggurat.

Task force members said that even if all the recommendations agreed upon at their meeting Friday were implemented, overcrowding at the main jail in Santa Ana might still exist.

“We’re not sure if everything we try will work,” Wahlstedt said.

“Some things would be first-time experiments.”