100 Jail Inmates to Be Taken to Honor Farm

As a “quick-fix” remedy to reduce overcrowding, about 100 inmates will be moved Monday from the main Orange County Jail in Santa Ana to an honor farm where new bunk beds have been installed.

Officials said Saturday that additional security fencing, expected to be finished by Monday afternoon, will be required at the Theo Lacy Honor Farm in Orange before inmates can be transferred.

The plan was announced and explained in a three-page letter from Sheriff-Coroner Brad Gates to the Board of Supervisors, dated Friday and made public on Saturday.

Short-Term Solutions

Gates’ letter is in response to the county’s request for short-term solutions to jail overcrowding in order to comply with a federal judge’s directive.

On March 18, U.S. District Judge William P. Gray found Gates and the supervisors in contempt of court for not complying with his 1978 order to improve conditions at the jail. He imposed a $50,000 fine and stipulated that after May 17, the county would be fined $10 a day for each inmate who must sleep on the floor for more than one night.

The jail was built to house 1,191 inmates. As of 4 a.m. Saturday there were 1,827, according to Sheriff’s Lt. Tom Conner.

Final Report Forthcoming

A final report detailing short-term solutions to overcrowding is expected to be delivered to the board Tuesday, sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Dick Olson said Saturday. He said Gates’ letter, “an interim status report,” was presented to supervisors late Friday.

“The movement to the branch jails was not possible until we received additional double bunks,” Gates said in his letter. “. . .the bunks have been installed in all available space at the branch jails.”

With the additional bunks, Gates said, prisoners can now be moved from the James A. Musick Branch Jail in El Toro to the Theo Lacy facility, allowing for the transfer of about 100 nonviolent and lower-security-risk inmates.

The inmates will not be moved, however, unless additional security measures such as the fencing can be installed, Olson said Saturday.

A jail overcrowding task force, appointed by supervisors after Gray’s March decision, has submitted to the county several proposed solutions. In his letter, Gates responded to two panel proposals that his staff had studied and reached “very definitive conclusions” about.

The suggestion to use cots in the central jail, he said, is not “viable” because the temporary bedding could be disassembled by inmates and used as weapons against deputies or other inmates.

The cots “would provide additional combustible materials in the event of disturbances or accidental fires,” Gates said in the letter. “The placement of these cots would also reduce space available for escape routes during emergencies, such as fire.”

Using the “beach” area outside jail cells would create “severe security problems” and an “uncontrollable situation,” Gates said, because cell doors would have to remain open to allow inmates the use of toilets.

Recommendation Criticized

Larry J. Holmes, acting county administrative officer and chairman of the task force, had recommended placing beds in one of the jail’s two dining areas. Gates wrote that this plan would not work because the dining rooms are needed to feed inmates and because toilet and shower facilities to serve those inmates would be inadequate.

The sheriff said his department had requested that the county General Services Agency compile by May 21 a list of available county-owned buildings that could be used for lodging 300 inmates dormitory-style on double or three-tier bunks.

“Unfortunately,” Gates reported, “only two buildings were on the list--the basement area of 601 N. Broadway and the basement of Building B at 1300 S. Grand Ave. My staff visited both locations. Neither one would be feasible for the housing of prisoners for a number of reasons we will detail in our May 28 report.”

Gates said his staff has come up with a list of sites and is studying the possibility of using them on a short-term basis. However, he concluded that “long-term solutions do not lie within existing jail facilities.”