Supervisors OK More Expansion at Honor Rancho

At a time when Santa Clarita Valley residents are still angry about Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley’s proposal to build a state prison in Saugus, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has added 500 beds to a maximum-security building planned for the Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho.

Coupled with a 1,600-bed expansion approved by the board last year, the honor rancho’s population would swell by 2,100 inmates by January, 1989, when construction is scheduled to be completed.

The number of inmates in the honor rancho’s three units varies between 3,900 and 5,100, said Lt. Art Herrera, operations lieutenant at Pitchess.

The jail usually has about 5,000 inmates, he said. The additional expansion will bring the total population to about 7,000.

Prisoners are almost equally divided among the facility’s minimum-, medium- and maximum-security units, Herrera said.

Construction Approved

Supervisors, faced with overcrowding at all county jail facilities, Tuesday approved construction to accommodate the additional 500 beds.

In October, when Bradley proposed building a state prison on a 520-acre, city-owned site in Bouquet Canyon in Saugus, residents organized a protest rally the same day.

A larger, much noisier demonstration against the proposed prison was held a few days later. The residents, many with young children in tow, carried placards and shouted “no prison.” They protested that a prison does not belong in a community of middle-class homes that has attracted thousands of young couples who believe it offers a safer, more relaxed life style.

Bradley’s proposal led to the founding of Citizens for Fair Prison Sites, a group to fight the prison proposal. Robin Geissler, a Saugus homemaker and substitute teacher who started the group, said Thursday that the supervisors’ decision to expand the Pitchess facility, in Castaic, underscores residents’ claims that the Santa Clarita Valley already has its fair share of Los Angeles County’s prisoners.

She said that she was unaware of the board’s action increasing the planned capacity of the maximum-security unit.

Inmates Escaped

“I just hope they make the buildings really secure,” she said, “so they won’t have any more escapes like they did last year.”

Seven inmates, one a murder suspect, escaped from the maximum-security facility last March. All were captured within a month.

Geissler said many families buying homes in the fast-growing Saugus area near the county jail have no idea what the facility is. “They’re under the impression it’s a youth camp of some sort,” she said. “Some think it’s way back in the canyon.”

Close to Housing Tract

Actually, Geissler said, the 2,850-acre honor ranch is less than a mile from a new housing tract.

The last expansion at Pitchess was in July, 1984, when a medium-security unit was opened in case of trouble at the Summer Olympics. The unit added 1,400 inmates to the rancho’s population.

Even with that expansion, sheriff’s officials have said the facility often houses twice the 2,500 prisoners it is designed to handle.

On many weekends, when the downtown County Jail is filled beyond its capacity, inmates transferred to Pitchess’ medium-security unit are forced to sleep on the floor, officials said.

Some of the signs waved by protesters at last year’s anti-prison rallies pointed out that “We Already Have Wayside.” Pitchess was known as the Wayside Honor Rancho until the name was changed four years ago.

Name Change

An honor ranch originally was meant to designate a minimum-security residence for nonviolent offenders that would keep them out of the downtown jail.

The Sheriff’s Department is considering another name change, to reflect the institution’s changed status, a sheriff’s spokesman said.

“The Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho is a misnomer,” Geissler said. “What we have here is really another prison, not an honor ranch.”