Why No Prison?

The new state prison scheduled for Los Angeles County belongs in downtown Los Angeles.

The state’s proposed site, the Crown Coach property and other parcels near 12th Street and Santa Fe Avenue, is in an industrial area two miles southeast of the Los Angeles Civic Center.

It is entirely suitable for a prison that would house 700 inmates but serve primarily as a 1,700-bed reception center, where new inmates typically stay for 29 days while they are classified--by behavior and offense--for assignment to minimum-, medium- or maximum-security facilities.

No large spaces are needed for inmate workplaces or training areas, so the 23-acre site is big enough. By state calculations the price of the property is reasonable. Roads and utility services appear adequate. Perhaps best of all, it is centrally located, accessible to visitors traveling by bus or car and close to courtrooms and the county jail--a factor that would cut costs of transporting inmates.

Money usually stalls government projects, but in this case the voters have approved two substantial bond issues to finance prison construction--more than enough to cover the $120 million that the Los Angeles prison is expected to cost.

Location has stalled the Los Angeles prison for three years. Every proposed site has ignited opposition, and the battle has been elevated to gubernatorial politics.

Gov. George Deukmejian supports the downtown site. Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, the governor’s most likely challenger in 1986, wants the prison on city-owned land in Saugus, a canyon community 35 miles northwest of downtown.

Although the Bradley site is much bigger--520 acres and, at $8 million, cheaper--the state has rejected it because of earthquake hazards, lack of sewers and roads and proximity to homes and schools.

Buffered by railroad tracks and the Los Angeles riverbed, the downtown site is one mile from the closest schools and two miles from the closest homes in Boyle Heights, which is represented by Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-Los Angeles).

Molina objects because a state prison in downtown would add more prisoners to an area where there are 12,000 prisoners in county institutions. The state has promised benefits such as jobs and a park; perhaps further concessions to her district would sway Molina. If not, her objection will block a downtown site when the California Legislature takes up the matter again next year.

Three years ago state lawmakers insisted, quite fairly, that Los Angeles share the growing burden of housing criminals, because 38% of California’s convicted male criminals come from this county. While the deadlock continues, the years will continue to go by with overcrowding in prisons, some of which hold twice the number of inmates for which they were designed.

The need is great. The money has been appropriated. Why is there still no new state prison?