Women Deputies Join Men as Central Jail Guards

The voice is clear and loud, and it belongs to Nancy Fagerstrom, a no-nonsense San Diego County sheriff’s deputy:

Have you ever been to state prison?

Have you ever had psychiatric problems?

Ever felt like killing yourself?

Do you feel like killing yourself now?

It’s another busy day at the downtown San Diego central jail, and Fagerstrom is working as a human traffic cop in the hectic receiving area, routing prisoners with assembly line efficiency to destinations inside and outside the imposing warehouse with thick concrete walls and cast iron cages.

It’s chaotic work, stressful and amusing at times, yet routine, in the way daily rhythms of large, impersonal institutions are routine. But something new has been introduced into this ebb and flow: women, five female sheriff’s deputies who are the vanguard of a quiet yet fundamental change in the sheriff’s office.

No more will women deputies be assigned to work only in the women’s jail--a tradition going back to the days when women guards were called matrons.

From now on, women deputies will take their place alongside their male colleagues and work in the county’s five men’s jails, including the downtown central jail, where on the second through fifth floors sit the county’s most dangerous prisoners.

And, in a stroke of balance, male deputies will soon find themselves working at the all-female Las Colinas jail in Santee.

The change, or evolution, to put it more accurately, was long in coming, said Sheriff John Duffy, who was worried about several things, including the privacy of male inmates in a place where the most private of human functions--showering and using the toilet--are open for all to see because of the need for security.

“I got a lot of reservations . . . (I) approached this very carefully, my staff was after me for a long time,” Duffy said.

“What finally convinced me is I’m not giving women the same kind of training experience as men in the men’s jail; they come into patrol not with the same experience . . . ,” Duffy said. “I’m not being fair to these women; (the staff) convinced me to let them get the same experience as men.”

That’s part of the reason for the change. There are others. By rotating women deputies throughout the jail system, the sheriff’s office hopes it will shorten the time male deputies are mired in jail duty, thus getting them out around the county on patrol faster.

As things stand now, women deputies straight out of the police academy are out on patrol after spending about two to three years working in Las Colinas, which employs about 55 women deputies.

In contrast, the wait for male deputies--forced to compete with other men at the five men’s jails--can often reach four years.

“This created some inequities, no doubt about it,” said Capt. Jim Roache, commander at the central jail and one of the people who pushed for the change.

Under the new change in policy, all deputies who leave the police academy--their first stop is always jail duty--will be treated the same.

“We will now make our assignments based on operational necessities and not gender,” said Roache. “There will be no preferential treatment. A deputy sheriff is a deputy sheriff is a deputy sheriff.”

The San Diego sheriff’s decision to use women in the men’s jails is not unique. For several years, female correctional officers have worked in state prisons, and other sheriffs, most notably in Los Angeles County, have deployed women deputies at their men’s facilities, including maximum-security jails. And although this is the first time women have worked on the front lines in San Diego, a female lieutenant and sergeant have held administrative positions at the central jail in the past.

The San Diego sheriff’s office as traditionally operated has used jail duty to introduce deputies--most fresh from the police academy--to the real world of law enforcement.

By exposing deputies to prisoners, the sheriff’s theory goes, they learn how to deal with criminals, their cons, their ways, their games. This training leads to a more savvy deputy once he gets on patrol and, according to the sheriff’s office, minimizes the potential of needless confrontations.

But holes in that theory developed when it came to women deputies. The women were automatically assigned to Las Colinas and not exposed to male criminals--who make up 90% of all arrests--until they were out on patrol.

This not only placed women deputies at a disadvantage, said Roache, but it made their male colleagues uneasy knowing that their backups were relatively green.

Aside from the training advantage the sheriff’s office says the women deputies will now receive by working at the men’s jails, the change also will help meet Duffy’s goal of getting men out of the jails and into the field within 2 1/2 years.

According to veterans of the sheriff’s office, many of the male deputies have resented the situation that forced them to remain on jail assignment years longer than their female counterparts.

“They get out of the academy at the same time, and then the women go one way and the men go another. That hasn’t led to positive feelings,” said one veteran officer who requested anonymity.

Aware that the first group of female deputies would be under the spotlight and that a successful start was necessary to get things off on a positive step, the sheriff’s office asked for volunteers and hand-picked the recruits.

Selected from Las Colinas were Fagerstrom, Lynn Sanders, Debra Hinchliffe, Lorraine Engelman and Jan Van Winkle. All had worked at the women’s jail for at least a year and two of them, Fagerstrom and Hinchliffe, had previous experience as San Diego police officers.

Convinced that operationally the women could do the job, the next obstacle the sheriff faced was making some adjustments for inmate privacy.

The only duty women deputies are excluded from is the strip search, in which naked inmates are searched for hidden weapons and contraband.

Other changes, however, were also made at the central jail. Low-cost privacy screens were bought and placed around toilets. Inmate rules and regulations were changed requiring inmates to wear long pants once they get out of bed and to wrap themselves with towels after a shower.

On May 24, the five women started work at the central jail, which houses an average of about 750 inmates a day in a maximum-security structure built in 1960 and which employs about 101 sheriff’s personnel.

Fagerstrom, 39, a stocky, friendly, single parent of two teen-age sons, knew from her four years working in the San Diego Police Department, most of them on patrol in the Southeast area, what she was getting into.

“I’m street wise so I know what’s going on and what to look for, although the expectations in the street and in here, where I’m more a warehouseman, are different,” she said during a brief respite from the hectic work in the receiving area.

Using a combination of tough talk, as when she yells at new inmates to keep their hands in their pockets as they are transferred through the facility, and sweet talk, as when she asks a frightfully skinny, long-haired young man when he is going to give up speed, Fagerstrom is anything but a wallflower.

She’s aggressive and a straight talker, a trait she said has gotten her in trouble in the past, but which seems to be an advantage in the jail.

On a stroll through a hallway packed on both sides with inmates, one man sitting on a toilet is in clear view, despite a window that was partially painted to hide the toilet from view.

Fagerstrom acknowledges the man’s presence with the indifference of a hospital nurse. The jail doesn’t scare her, although she is on guard not to make any mistakes that would put her or her co-workers in jeopardy. “I wouldn’t want to be in a dark room with them,” she says of the prisoners.

Fagerstrom said that if one of the male deputies gets into a fight with an inmate, she will not hesitate to help. “I’m going to grab whatever I can grab and hold on. I’ll give it all I’ve got . . . that’s the most you can expect from any officer.”

One of the reasons she volunteered, she said, is that “I want to move up,” and the experience at the men’s jail will help her in her career.

At Las Colinas, the women prisoners were always looking for something to do, something to clean. As a result, the facility and the deputies’ stations, she said, are usually clean.

At the central jail, the men move to a different rhythm, as attested to by the cigarette butts on the floor. “Well, here, if a man doesn’t have to do anything, he doesn’t. He’ll sit in his bunk all day or watch TV.”

When she first started working at the central jail, Lynn Sanders, 32, was the target of whistles and catcalls from the inmates. Now the baiting is gone.

“Once they knew I was here to deal with them on a professional level, it stopped,” said Sanders, who is married. “They’ll try and charm you . . . but I don’t think it’s anything different than what they’d try on a new deputy.”

Sanders, working on the jail’s sixth floor, where inmates who are sick and those in need of psychiatric help are kept, said part of her motivation is the chance to be among the first to break down the old barriers.

“I wanted the experience of working with male inmates,” said Sanders, who had worked at Las Colinas for almost three years. “It’s also the first time, it’s history . . . something new and different.”

Hinchliffe, 32 and single, said that so far her experience had been positive. Her male co-workers have been willing, she said, to judge her individually. Of the inmates, she says, “Once in a while you get some disrespect . . . but it’s fairly isolated.”

While attention has been focused on women going into the men’s jails, Hinchliffe said male deputies assigned to Las Colinas would be better off for it.

It will, she said, make deputies more sensitive to rape situations, violent family problems and women as victims of crime, while at the same time showing them “the games women play.”

“I think this change helps everyone,” Hinchliffe said.

Times staff writer Glenn F. Bunting contributed to this story.