Overseer Suggests Home Monitor System to Help Ease Jail Crowding

The specially appointed overseer of the Orange County Jail is suggesting that overcrowding be eased by keeping some honor inmates at home and monitoring their whereabouts with electronic sensors.

Lawrence G. Grossman said in his latest biweekly report that three times between Feb. 11 and Feb. 25 the main men’s jail in Santa Ana had more than 1,500 inmates, the ceiling that took effect Jan. 15 at the order of a federal judge.

“In order to meet the needs of Orange County’s correctional system, it seems to me that new jail construction is mandatory,” Grossman said in the Feb. 26 report.

“Unfortunately, it should have been under way years ago. In the meantime, I believe the only viable solution is to develop alternatives to incarceration . . . ,” he said.

He listed four alternatives:

- Release nonviolent defendants accused of lesser crimes, giving them citations.

- Release selected convicts three days before the normal expiration of their sentences.

- Reinstate the parole process in the county.

- Develop a home-confinement program for those assigned to the work-furlough program, using electronic monitoring devices like those to be used in San Diego County.

Transmitter Bracelets

Jack Peci, a spokesman for the San Diego County Probation Department, said the program is to start there July 1.

Inmates who currently work outside during the day but spend their nights in jail will spend their nights at home, wearing bracelets containing small transmitters emitting inaudible signals that are picked up by a receiver attached to an inmate’s telephone.

An inmate wandering more than 150 feet from the receiver without the county’s permission will have the movement noted by a computer, according to Cecil Steppe, San Diego County’s chief probation officer.

Dick Herman, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who sued Orange County over jail conditions, said Friday that if all Grossman’s recommendations were followed, the county might be able to reduce its inmate population at the main and branch jails from about 3,400 to less than 2,000.

“Orange is the only county with a jail system in the entire state of California that does not use citation release at the jail, the only one,” Herman said. Under citation release, a defendant never enters the jail while awaiting trial.

County Delay Criticized

Herman charged that county officials “are just dragging their feet” in complying with U.S. District Judge William P. Gray’s 1978 order to improve jail conditions, largely by ending overcrowding.

Edward N. Duran, the deputy county counsel handling the jail lawsuit, said he had not received Grossman’s latest report and could not comment.

In March, 1985, Judge Gray found Sheriff Brad Gates and the county supervisors in criminal contempt for not heeding his 1978 order. He levied fines on the county and used part of the money to pay Grossman, the court’s appointee.

A year ago, the main jail population was 2,000. Gray subsequently ordered that it be cut to 1,500 by Jan. 15 and to 1,400 by April 1.

County officials built new facilities at the branch jails to meet Gray’s orders, but two weeks ago Gates warned supervisors of an “alarming increase in the inmate population” that would make it difficult to meet the April 1 deadline.

The sheriff said that “timely provisions for new facilities should have already been made.”

Further Steps Advocated

Grossman echoed those comments, saying the continuing increase in the numbers of offenders jailed “makes compliance with the court’s order unlikely unless further steps are taken.”

Grossman said that Gates’ department “has been very responsive to the jail overcrowding issue” but that so far only “temporary relief” has been gained by expanding the branch jails. New construction at the branch facilities will probably “only accommodate the projected increases in population,” Grossman said.

Orange County supervisors have not yet chosen a site for a new jail, the first step in what will be a lengthy process of preparing environmental impact reports and coping with angry residents near whatever location is chosen before construction begins.

“I’m just appalled that the county would challenge the judge and test the judge’s orders and see how far they could push them,” Herman said. “I think they’re playing with fire and they’re going to get burned if they keep it up.”