County Vows to Solve Court, Jail Crowding

After years of complaining about a chronic shortage of courtrooms and jail cells that has now reached crisis proportions, San Diego County supervisors vowed Tuesday to do something about it.

Just what they’ll do, however, remains to be seen.

The task is ominous: County staff members said Tuesday that it will cost $419 million to expand courthouses and jails and to build needed new ones through the next decade.

County supervisors, who over the years have struggled with the problem only to decide that what was needed was more study, agreed Tuesday that any more delay would only drive up the cost of the eventual solution.

Supervisor George Bailey proposed that the county place on the ballot, perhaps as soon as June, a measure to increase the 6% sales tax to 7% to pay for new court and jail facilities.

“We need to get the judges, the lawyers, the policemen, the bureaucrats and what politicians we have left, and get together and go to work and solve this thing,” he said. “We’ve been talking 15 or 20 years about the problem, and we still haven’t faced it head on.”

Supervisor Susan Golding said she thought a bond issue would be better-received by the voters than a sales tax increase.

“We cannot forever play catch-up” she said. “If we do not do this now, my fear is we will continue to do what we’ve been doing in the past: Put it off.”

The supervisors’ comments were triggered by a county study that said the jails are short 900 beds today and falling further behind every year. In addition, current court space will need to double within 20 years to serve the county’s growing needs, the study said.

The board Tuesday was bombarded by comments from judges, attorneys and the county sheriff--all of whom said their needs were the most critical.

“I am here to say it is an emergency situation,” said Donald W. Smith, presiding judge of the San Diego Superior Court. “We absolutely have to have additional judicial help.”

But Sheriff John Duffy held a different view: “We really have not yet come to grips with the fact that the major problem of the criminal justice system . . . is jail overcrowding.”

Duffy said the county could be successfully sued today for conditions at the regional jails in Vista, El Cajon and Chula Vista, which are just as overcrowded as the downtown San Diego jail was six years ago when the American Civil Liberties Union won a court order requiring the county to reduce the inmate population.

“I do not expect the board will ever be sued for inadequate court space,” Duffy said.

Still, perhaps because temporary courts are easier to put in place than temporary jails, the supervisors offered several off-the-cuff suggestions for immediately alleviating the courtroom shortage.

Bailey suggested that court sessions be held in the old Board of Supervisors’ chambers at the County Administration Center, and that existing courtrooms might be more fully used, perhaps in late-afternoon or evening sessions.

And Supervisor Leon Williams suggested that the parking lots flanking the County Administration Center could be home to several trailers for temporary courtrooms.