Push Comes to Shove in County Jails : New Facilities Won’t End Overcrowding, State Report Says

San Diego County’s jails are overcrowded and short of staff, and new jail cells already funded will do little to relieve the problem, according to a state inspection report released Thursday.

The report, prepared by the state Board of Corrections, said the jails are run as well as could be expected under poor conditions.

Edgar Smith, the board’s assistant executive officer, said in an interview that crowding in the jails is as bad as it was in 1979, before a Superior Court judge ordered a cap on the number of inmates kept in the County Jail downtown.

“It looks like they’re back in the same fix,” Smith said. “Except now they have six overcrowded jails instead of two.”

Smith said the receiving area in the downtown jail is the “pits” of the generally well-run jail system. He said he will recommend to the Legislature later this year that the receiving area be remodeled and expanded.

Smith said Vista jail is “severely understaffed” and that overcrowded dormitories pose a “significant hazard to staff and inmates.” Inmates sleeping on mattresses on the floor of the Chula Vista jail create unsafe conditions, the report said, and the El Cajon jail has floor drains, toilet accessories and bunk-beds made of materials better suited for homes than a maximum security jail.

The captains who run the jails are “creative, willing and looking for new ways to handle impossible overcrowding, and willing to ignore the faults of the poorly designed new jails to make the best of it,” Smith wrote.

Sheriff John Duffy released the report Thursday along with a letter he sent to the county’s Criminal Justice Council. Duffy said the jails are so overcrowded that he fears local attorneys may soon seek a new court order further limiting the system’s population. The jails housed 2,818 inmates Tuesday, 1,222 more than they were designed to hold.

“We are presently at a crisis point, and in the interest of my officers’ safety, Draconian measures may become the norm rather than the exception,” Duffy wrote.

Assistant Sheriff Clifford Powell, who supervises the jail system, said the jail may soon be releasing suspects who are brought in with outstanding arrest warrants on bail as high as $1,500. Past practice has been to release suspects with warrants on bail of $500 to $1,000, depending on the level of overcrowding.

“We’re seriously concerned about what can happen,” Powell said. “This is it. Every extra person that goes in causes more of a possible problem that might result.”