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Judge Renews Attack on Inmate Relocation : Idea Would Imperil Youth Forest Camp, County Panel Told

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Times Staff Writer

The main proposal of a special county task force to relieve overcrowding at the Orange County Jail came under attack again Monday from the presiding judge of the Juvenile Court, who warned that putting adults at Los Pinos Forestry Camp could destroy a successful program to rehabilitate youthful offenders.

But task force members said that when they recommended sending adult inmates to Los Pinos, which is currently a juvenile detention center, they were aware of the objections of Judge Betty Lou Lamoreaux.

The county panel met Monday and made minor revisions in the plan that the Board of Supervisors is expected to consider at today’s meeting on how to comply with a federal court order to improve County Jail conditions.

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On March 18, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray found the supervisors in contempt for not complying with his 1978 order to improve the jail and levied a $50,000 fine. Gray also imposed a fine of $10 per day for each prisoner forced to sleep on the floor of the jail for more than one night, but stayed imposition of the fine for 60 days--until May 17.

Deadline to Be Missed

The panel repeated its finding of last Friday that the county would not be able to comply with Gray’s deadline.

“I’m certainly mindful of the (Board of Supervisors’) problems with trying to find places to put the jailed people, but I just don’t think Los Pinos is an appropriate facility,” Lamoreaux said.

Lamoreaux’s warnings in a telephone interview echoed her letter to the supervisors last week in which she said it would be “very imprudent to decimate the very good program for a short-term and possibly short-sighted solution.”

The judge said the proposal to house inmates in the gym “will be destroying completely the athletic program for these young men” who are housed at the camp near Lake Elsinore.

“More importantly, the whole program, which has been 15 years in developing, may be jeopardized by housing adults in the federally leased facility,” the judge said in her April 26 letter.

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Short-Term Alternative

Despite Lamoreaux’s objections, the panel last Friday recommended that Los Pinos be used but stressed that it should house adult inmates only temporarily, as “a short-term alternative” and that the search for an alternative location continue.

Arthur C. Wahlstedt Jr., a deputy county counsel who is acting as spokesman for the task force, said after Monday’s meeting that the use of Los Pinos “is a primary recommendation, but it is intended to be a temporary method of alleviating the problem, and not a long-term one.

“You wouldn’t do it otherwise than to solve an immediate problem. I think the thought is to use it temporarily for that purpose and as soon as something else is developed or as soon as some of these other programs get into effect, the need would be less and (the use of Los Pinos for adults) could be phased out.”

Wahlstedt said that some of the panel’s recommendations could be carried out within two or three months and the county could probably meet Gray’s order to improve conditions at the jail within six months.

He said he expected that if the supervisors adopted the proposals the county would report to Gray “with the idea of demonstrating that significant progress is being made.”

Wahlstedt said the county would probably notify the judge “that there are some things that can’t be done instantly but that a good-faith effort is being made to accomplish them as soon as possible.”

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

200 in Gymnasium

The representatives of the county agencies ordered by the supervisors to study the overcrowding problem and produce recommendations to end it said the gymnasium at Los Pinos could hold 200 inmates, who were to be “sufficiently isolated” from the approximately 80 youths, aged 16 to 18, at the detention center.

The task force said any adult inmates housed at Los Pinos would be nonviolent, minimum-security offenders, such as trusties or men serving their jail time on weekends.

Supervisor Ralph Clark said he remained “very skeptical about watering down any of our juvenile facilities or programs” and wanted to be sure the supervisors took steps that were “emergency, temporary measures that can be done without jeopardizing the fulfillment of what that program at Los Pinos was put together for.”

The county task force also recommended the use of programs that would get some inmates out of jail, such as modifying sentences to let certain prisoners convicted of nonviolent crimes be put on probation early; releasing offenders on their own recognizance, rather than setting bail, and expanding the county parole program.

Last week Lawrence G. Grossman, the special master appointed by Gray to monitor improvements at the jail, said conditions had gotten better since the federal judge’s ruling. Grossman said the 1,191-capacity jail had from 1,731 to 1,890 inmates between April 18 and April 28, with anywhere from 166 to 280 inmates having to sleep on the floor for more than one night during that period.

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