Report: County Can’t Meet Deadline on Jail Crowding

A special task force reported Friday that Orange County will be unable to meet a federal judge’s deadline to relieve overcrowding at the County Jail by May 17.

The panel said in its 11-page draft report to the Board of Supervisors that about 400 more beds must be found to ease overcrowding in the jail, as ordered March 18 by U.S. District Judge William P. Gray in Los Angeles.

“It will not be possible to completely comply with Judge Gray’s order within the 60-day time frame,” the report said.

Aides to the supervisors said there would be no immediate comment on the report, a copy of which was obtained by The Times. The task force is due to meet again Monday and could modify its recommendations before the supervisors consider the matter at their regular meeting Tuesday.

The supervisors appointed the task force, which is composed of representatives of several county agencies including the probation and sheriff’s departments, after Gray found the county in contempt of court for violating his 1978 order to improve conditions at the jail.

County Fined $50,000

Gray fined the county $50,000 but stayed imposition for 60 days of an additional fine of $10 per day for each inmate forced to sleep on the floor more than one night. The draft report did not predict when the county could comply with Gray’s order.

The panel said 125 of the 400 additional beds that are needed could be provided by using triple-deck bunks at the main jail in Santa Ana. It said another 76 beds could be added to the James A. Musick correctional facility near El Toro.

The report said that the remaining 200 prisoners could be housed in the gymnasium of the Los Pinos Forestry Camp near Lake Elsinore but that it would take at least 4 1/2 months to get the facility ready if full environmental reports are required.

Los Pinos, situated on federal land, is run by the Probation Department and houses about 80 juveniles.

The report stressed that the use of Los Pinos to house minimum security adults, which would cost more than $600,000 a year, would be temporary. It said the recommendation was made “under the proviso that adults and juveniles be separated.”

Russ Kiessig, owner of Ortega Hot Springs, said his hot tub rental establishment seven miles down the mountain from the forestry camp at Los Pinos has not been bothered at all by the juveniles housed there.

‘Zero Impact’ on Hot Tub Business

“Down where we are, Los Pinos makes absolutely zero impact on us,” Kiessig said. “We don’t even know they’re there.”

But closer to the camp, there is concern over the proposals, according to the owner of Nicolai’s El Cariso restaurant, who insisted that his only name was Nicolai.

Nicolai said that residents of the approximately 75 houses in the village of El Cariso, which is about three miles from Los Pinos, had heard that up to 200 adult inmates would be housed at the facility on weekends and up to 100 during the week. But he said the villagers had received no official notification.

“If one were to know with great surety that this (was true) . . ., it would be understandable and perhaps tolerated and perhaps accepted,” he said. But the state prison at Chino “has a poor track record,” Nicolai added. “They’ve had some ‘non-violent offenders’ over there, and they’ve had problems.”

If the only inmates were drunk drivers, he said, that would be fine, “but someone always slips through the net. No one wants a jail in their back yard. You certainly don’t.”

The county task force warned that the problem of overcrowding at the jail was complex and not susceptible to simple solutions. It noted that agencies “must also be cautious not to damage other programs in our haste to solve the immediate jail overcrowding issue.”

Some supervisors’ aides have expressed concern that Los Pinos could wind up as a jail for adults, run by the Sheriff’s Department, in the effort to solve the overcrowding issue, which would leave the Probation Department scrambling to find new facilities for juveniles.

The panel’s report came a day after a status report from Lawrence G. Grossman, whom Gray appointed as a special master to monitor improvements at the jail.

Population Declines

Grossman said that the population at the men’s jail had declined and that fewer inmates were sleeping on the floor than at the time of Gray’s order. The special master said the jail, which has a capacity of 1,191, had a population ranging from 1,731 to 1,890 between April 18 and April 28. From 166 to 280 inmates had to sleep on the floor for more than one night during that period.

The panel also recommended other programs that could help relieve overcrowding, and in some cases specified how many additional beds the programs were likely to free.

They are:

- Evaluate and encourage the possibility of releasing offenders on their own recognizance, rather than setting bail, which could save 10 beds.

- Expand to all Municipal Courts an experimental program in North Municipal Court to search for defendants who fail to appear in court and persuade them to show up voluntarily, rather than automatically jailing them when they are found.

- Consider modifying sentences of those convicted of non-violent crimes to let them be freed from jail and put on probation after serving more than one-half their sentences, which could save up to 150 beds. - Review the county parole program with the goal of expanding it, which could save up to 100 beds.

- Consider funding a half-way house, which could handle 24 inmates taken from the main jail.

- Create a facility where people arrested for drunkenness could sober up rather than be taken to jail, which could save 28 beds.

- Develop work programs for those given weekend or short-term sentences, which could save 200 beds on weekends.

The report, written by acting County Administrative Officer Larry J. Holms, said the panel had rejected use of the Joplin/Potrero facility at Trabuco Canyon or the Albert Sitton Home in Orange to house inmates.

It also scotched the idea of having a private firm run a program for offenders serving weekend or work furlough sentences, saying it would cost too much and require changes in the judicial system that could complicate efforts to solve the jail problem, Holms said.