Squabbles, Miscues Dog the Prison Builders

Deukmejian Administration officials are confident of completing their emergency prison construction program by next July, but their efforts to deal with the long-range prospects of an inmate population explosion are far behind schedule and deeply troubled.

In the last three years, the Administration has authorized construction of new cells to accommodate 20,000 prisoners. Only enough to house 3,200 have been built so far, while cells for an additional 6,000 inmates are under construction. Much of those involve new prison camps and prefabricated additions to existing institutions--projects considered among the easiest to bring on line.

Meanwhile, several major proposed prisons are threatened by political squabbling over where they should be located. And in nearly every case, the Administration’s projects have been delayed well beyond their scheduled completion dates by factors ranging from labor disputes to citizen opposition.

The result is that lawmakers and other state officials are increasingly skeptical of the Administration’s ability to complete a program that is key to its tough law-and-order stance.

Deukmejian said Tuesday that because there has been “no prison expansion going on in California for approximately 20 years,” the state had to “get geared up to undertake what will be perhaps the most major prison expansion program ever carried out anywhere in the United States. . . . I think now we have had enough experience, and we do have a good team in operation.”

But Jeff Ruch, a consultant to the Assembly Public Safety Committee, which reviews the Administration’s prison programs, said it is not yet clear that the department has overcome its “lack of experience.”

“The line they use now is, ‘They’ve got their act together,’ ” Ruch said. “But we haven’t seen that yet.”

Skepticism over the Administration’s handling of the prison program erupted publicly several weeks ago when Democrats in the Assembly refused the governor’s request to waive environmental reviews for his emergency prison construction program and stripped the bill of anything relating to his long-term projects.

Administration officials argue now, as they did then, that their projects have been held up by the state’s strict environmental review process that requires lengthy environmental impact reports, by public opposition and by political wrangling among lawmakers.

Public opposition has been a factor in several of the long-delayed projects, particularly in the case of a proposed prison in Los Angeles County. That project, sidetracked by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco) only hours before the Legislature adjourned for the year, has become a political football among city, county and state officials--all trying to shield their constituents from such an unpopular institution.

But few of the governor’s prison projects have been held up by environmental lawsuits. Moreover, experts who have studied the prison plans say that the Legislature has been more than cooperative in giving the governor the resources he needs to carry out his plans.

Former Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr., who late in his last term supported a major prison construction program, saw his request whittled down to almost nothing by a Democratic Legislature that was uncertain of his ability to perform.

However, since Deukmejian came to office in 1983, the Legislature has approved $611.4 million for prison construction projects, about half of the $1.2 billion the governor says is needed. Much of the money is coming from $795 million in bond funds approved by California voters in 1982 and 1984.

The Department of Corrections, meanwhile, has suffered from turnover at the top as six directors have come and gone in the last five years, each with his own ideas of what the prison program should look like.

Typical of the department’s problems was its plan to build a 1,150-bed institution in Adelanto, a tiny town near the southern edge of the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County.

After the Legislature allocated nearly $19 million for the project, corrections officials discovered that they had picked a site directly under the flight pattern of George Air Force Base. Lawyers warned that building a prison there would open the state government to costly lawsuits. Earlier this month, the project was reluctantly abandoned.

BUILDING PRISON SPACE

Gov. George Deukmejian’s long-range plan to keep up with a ballooning state prison population would make room for an estimated 20,000 new inmates by 1989 in a system that today houses about 49,000. Construction is complete for 3,200 additional beds, but nearly all aspects of his plan have been delayed. Legislation signed Tuesday would provide space for 5,000 more inmates until those projects can be completed. These are the projects:

ADDITIONS TO PRISONS California Institution for Women at Frontera

New inmate space: 50 maximum-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally November, 1984; current estimate, 1986.

Reason for delay: Planning not completed by Department of Corrections.

California Medical Facility at Vacaville

New inmate space: 2,400 minimum- and medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally February, 1985; 1,200 completed to date with the rest expected early in 1986.

Reason for delay: Several design changes and a series of labor disputes.

California Men’s Colony West at San Luis Obispo

New inmate space: 900 beds.

Occupancy date: Originally, May, 1984; completed September, 1984.

Reason for delay: Local environmental concerns.

Folsom Prison

New inmate space: 1,700 maximum-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally February, 1986; current prediction 1986-87.

Reason for delay: Design changes intended to cut costs and severe drainage problems at the site.

North Women’s Prison near Stockton

New inmate space: 400 minimum-, medium- and maximum-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally March, 1986; current prediction 1986-87.

Reason for delay: Management problems.

Modular units at various prisons

New inmate space: 1,000 minimum- and medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally April, 1984; completed April, 1985.

Reason for delay: Management problems.

NEW PRISONS Ione

New inmate space: 1,700 medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally May, 1985; no current estimate on completion.

Reason for delay: Local opposition and dispute between Legislature and Deukmejian Administration over location.

Avenal, Kings County

New inmate space: 3,000 medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally March, 1986; current prediction, June, 1988.

Reason for delay: Environmental lawsuit by group of farmers.

Los Angeles County

New inmate space: 1,700 medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally September, 1986; no current estimate on completion.

Reason for delay: Political squabble by lawmakers and local officials over location.

Riverside County

New inmate space: 1,700 minimum- and medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally September, 1985; no current estimate on completion.

Reason for delay: No agreement on a specific location.

Adelanto, Riverside County

New inmate space: 1,150 minimum- and maximum-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally October, 1985; project abandoned.

Reason for abandonment: The site selected by the state is under the flight pattern of George Air Force Base.

San Diego County

New inmate space: 2,200 minimum- and medium-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally February, 1986; current prediction June, 1988.

Reason for delay: Sewage system problems and design changes intended to cut costs.

Tehachapi

New inmate space: 1,000 maximum-security beds.

Occupancy date: Originally January, 1985; current prediction October, 1985.

Reason for delay: Design changes and construction problems.

Prison camps

New inmate space: 1,000 minimum-security beds throughout the state.

Occupancy date: Originally 1984-85; 180 have been completed with the rest scheduled for completion in 1987.

Reason for delay: Management problems.

Corcoran, Kings County

New inmate space: 3,000 medium- and maximum-security beds.

Occupancy date: Undetermined; prison was authorized this year.

Source: Legislative analyst’s office and Department of Corrections.