Officials Confident About Jail Deadline : Vacations Canceled, Longer Work Weeks Imposed on Staff to Ease Inmate Crowding

The Orange County Central Municipal Court has ordered vacations canceled and imposed 60-hour work weeks for its staff at the County Jail, beginning today, in a crash effort to help meet a Sunday deadline to reduce overcrowding.

The order applies to the court’s detention release investigators, who determine whether incoming arrestees can be sent home on their own recognizance or be given a low bail. Having more investigators available usually means that more arrestees are sent home without ever sleeping at the overcrowded jail, said Don Bell, director of the court program.

Sheriff Brad Gates has been ordered by U.S. District Judge William P. Gray to have no inmates sleeping on the floor after their first 24 hours in the jail. Gray said that the order must be met by Sunday night.

Gates has been forced to have some inmates sleep on the floor during the past seven years because of overcrowding. But the numbers have been reduced from 500-plus when Gray made his first orders in March to less than 50 in recent weeks because of steps taken by Gates and the Board of Supervisors to lower the jail population.

Undersheriff Raul Ramos predicted that by Sunday night, “there’s no guessing about it, we will not have anyone on the floor” past the first 24 hours. Ramos said that figures on the number of inmates in the jail Sunday will not be released until Monday morning.

Ramos said the jail had just one inmate sleeping on the floor past the 24-hour grace period on Thursday night.

Ease in Standards Asked

Gates has asked the Central Municipal Court judges to ease their standards so that more minimim-risk inmates could be released without being sent to the housing areas of the jail.

Bell declined to say whether the judges have agreed to relax the standards. Ramos also said that he doesn’t know if they have done so. But, he said: “They (the judges) have told us they will do everything they possibly can to help us. There is a spirit of cooperation here (between the court staff at the jail and Gates’ staff) that goes beyond anything I’ve seen.”

Some inmates eligible for release on their own recognizance end up housed at the jail because the detention release program lacks the personnel to run background checks on them, Bell said.

If the jail has more inmates than bunks available Sunday night, Ramos said, jail officials will send as many as possible to the two branch jails--at Theo Lacy in Orange and the James A. Musick Honor Farm near El Toro. If those facilities reach capacity, Gates has ordered his jail staff to begin issuing citation releases--which order inmates to appear in court on their own--to incoming arrestees accused of minor crimes, Ramos said.

Gates’ staff has been meeting daily this week to find ways to meet the Sunday deadline. Meanwhile, the sheriff on Thursday sent a letter to the Board of Supervisors asking the county to step up the pace for selecting a site for the second jail, planned for 1990.