Profile of Typical Prisoner Is Really Anybody’s Guess

Who’s in jail in San Diego County?

A simple question, perhaps, but one for which there is no simple answer. Yet.

Knowing who’s in jail--that is, knowing the demographic background and criminal and violent history of inmates--can play a crucial role in helping to ease chronic overcrowding in the county’s jails. But despite mounds of information available on every inmate, including who he is, what he’s in jail for, how long he’ll be in jail and how he’ll get out, the county has yet to tabulate it all on a regular basis.

The San Diego Assn. of Governments (Sandag) is in the midst of an exhaustive study of the county’s jail population. The study will include a detailed, one-day snapshot of the population as well as a tracking of jail bookings over a period of time.

Sandag hopes to add to and confirm information gleaned from earlier, limited tracking studies performed by the association and a profile compiled by a consultant hired by the county.

The results of the studies differed significantly. Many of the suspects booked into jail--fingerprinted, photographed and placed in the jail computer--never make it to a cell, so they wouldn’t show up in a profile of inmates. Many inmates, moreover, are booked on more than one charge, making them tougher to classify in a tracking study.

Yet those earlier studies, both released this year, at least begin to describe the jail population:

More than half (52%) of the inmates booked into county jails during a three-month period this year were between the ages of 21 and 30. Thirteen percent were under 20 and 4% were older than 51.

More than half (56%) of new bookings were whites, 25% were Latinos and 17% were blacks. Eighty-four percent of bookings were men.

According to the study profiling inmates, nearly half (47%) of the inmates in the county’s jails and probation camps were residents of the City of San Diego. Another 29.2% were from other parts of San Diego County, 10% from elsewhere in California, and 2.5% from other states. Fewer than 3% of the inmates were from other countries, while 8.1% were transients listing no residence at all. More than two in five inmates (42.5%) had lived in San Diego County for more than 10 years.

In the one-day profile, 36% of the inmates in jail or honor camps had been arrested by the San Diego Police Department. Nineteen percent were brought in by the county marshal’s office, while 18.1% were arrested by the Sheriff’s Department. No other agency was responsible for more than 3.2% of the inmates in jail. Sandag’s tracking of bookings provided a slightly different picture for the period between July and September: 38% of arrests by the city of San Diego, 15% by the sheriff, 12% by the California Highway Patrol, 7% by the marshal’s office and 5% by the city of Oceanside. No other agency had more than 3%.

Because so few misdemeanants remain in the crowded jails, there is a dramatic difference in the breakdown of misdemeanants and felons booked and those you find sitting in jail on a random day. In the Sandag study, 66% of the bookings were for misdemeanors and 25% were for felonies. But when the consultant counted heads in jail and honor camps on a particular day, it found 70.7% in for felonies and 29.2% for misdemeanors.

Sandag found 25% of the bookings at county jails were for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, 10% were for failure to appear in court, 9% were for drunk in public, and 6% were for felony narcotic and drug violations. The profile found 21.4% of the inmates in jail for murder and other violent crimes, 14.6% for burglary and 11.1% for driving under the influence.

Almost two-thirds of those in jail (63%) had no prior felony convictions, and another 20.1% had just one. Almost the same amount (61.5%) had no prior misdemeanor convictions, while 24.9% had one. Among the inmates, 84.9% had no history of violence in jails or prisons.

The average length of stay in jail here is about 11 days. The average for sentenced inmates is about 50 days, while unsentenced inmates stay in jail for an average of about seven days. More than half of the inmates (52%) remain in jail for less than one day, and another 9% are released on their second day in jail. These numbers do not include the county honor camps, which hold only sentenced prisoners and thus have a much longer average stay.

Of those inmates released from jail during Sandag’s tracking study, 15% got out under the sheriff’s book-and-release program, in which suspected misdemeanants are released from jail almost as soon as they arrive as long as they promise to appear for a court hearing. Another 12% were released under a similar program for drunk drivers and 11% posted some form of bail. The next highest number (9%) got out because they had served their time.