State Ruling Brings 11% Rise in Inmates, Crisis in County Jails

The inmate count in San Diego County jails boomed to an all-time high Wednesday and law enforcement officials began plotting how to cope with a new overcrowding crisis.

The crisis arose as Sheriff John Duffy implemented a ruling by state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp that state law requires immediate booking at county jails of all criminal suspects arrested on outstanding warrants for misdemeanors.

Van de Kamp’s opinion, issued late in June, says the law prohibits the practice in San Diego and other counties of issuing citations to such suspects in the field without bringing them to jail--a shortcut that jail officials have considered critical to maintaining a lid on the county’s swelling jail population.

Duffy began implementing the ruling Monday, requiring his deputies to bring all suspects to jail. They can either deposit the bail set when their arrest warrants were issued or wait in jail to appear before a judge in hopes of winning a bail reduction or release on their own recognizance.

The result has been an 11% surge in the inmate count at the county’s six detention centers, according to the Sheriff’s Department. The jail system, which on average has been housing about 2,700 inmates, held 3,053 inmates Wednesday--81% more than its intended capacity.

In the jails, the extra prisoners meant heightened tension and safety concerns for both inmates and guards, said Lt. John Tenwolde, a department spokesman. About 325 inmates slept on the floor Tuesday night--40 more than on a typical night before the change in policy.

The Central Jail in San Diego, which by court order cannot hold more than 750 inmates, housed 853 prisoners early Wednesday, Tenwolde said.

“We’re just bursting at the seams, and it’s going to get nothing but worse,” he said.

San Diego County officials appeared unaware that they could continue current cite-and-release practices virtually unchanged and still be in compliance with Van de Kamp’s ruling--at least according to one of Van de Kamp’s top lieutenants.

Asst. Atty. Gen. Steve White, chief of Van de Kamp’s criminal division, said Wednesday that judges simply could agree to delegate bail-setting powers in most misdemeanor cases to jail officials. Then law enforcement agencies, if they chose to release suspects in the field, no longer would be in serious contradiction to the directive that defendants be brought before a judge to post bail.

“I sympathize with Sheriff Duffy and don’t say it isn’t a problem, but I say it isn’t a problem that can’t be fixed,” White said.

But with the problem unfixed for the time being, police and court officials in San Diego County said the curtailment of the cite-and-release option had immediate domino effects through the criminal justice system.

San Diego police, who first learned of Duffy’s action Wednesday morning, had made arrangements by the end of the day to book suspects arrested north of Interstate 8 at the Vista jail. But Asst. Police Chief Bob Burgreen said the plan was a stopgap measure that would waste officers’ time and dilute police protection.

“The immediate impact is going to be poor police service in the city of San Diego, because police officers are going to have to spend more time hauling prisoners greater distances,” Burgreen said.

Presiding Judge Frederic Link of San Diego Municipal Court said the piling up of misdemeanor suspects in the jails had forced him to appoint additional defense attorneys to counsel defendants at the county’s expense. Other attorneys asked for delays of jury trials so they could cope with added counseling duties, he said.

“It’s going to impact us, definitely,” Link said. “It’s going to mean extra judicial time, extra court time, extra prosecutorial time, extra police time--all the way around the board.”

The jail woes placed officials in the awkward position of supporting the underlying premise of Van de Kamp’s opinion--that defendants with outstanding warrants should not win automatic release in the field--but lamenting its impact on the day-to-day operations of the jails and courts.

Link, Burgreen and Tenwolde all seized on the opportunity to emphasize what they consider the county’s desperate need for additional jail space.

“These people should be going to jail--let’s not forget that,” Link said. “The citizens of this county had better wake up to the deplorable conditions that exist in terms of the lack of facilities.”

The county Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved construction of a $44-million jail and honor camp on East Mesa. A measure on the Nov. 4 ballot will ask county voters to approve a 1/2-cent increase in the sales tax to finance jail and court construction.

Because the new booking policy applies only to people arrested on outstanding warrants, it may create anomalies as police and jail officials try to keep jail populations under control, Tenwolde said.

A person caught by police in the act of committing a misdemeanor--beating up his neighbor, for instance--still can be cited and released without being booked at a jail. But if a computer check during a routine traffic stop shows a person has an outstanding warrant for a nonviolent offense, such as petty theft, the officer has no choice but to arrest the person and book him into jail.

Jail and court officials were undecided Wednesday what steps to take to limit the damage from the loss of the cite-and-release option. Jail commanders planned to discuss the problem today. Link said he hoped to convene a task force--perhaps as early as today--to plot the courts’ response.

Options that may be considered include posting a judge at the jail to review bails as soon as defendants are booked, increasing the use of video arraignments to speed releases and appealing to the county Board of Supervisors to reconsider its rejection of funding for booking facilities at the El Cajon and South Bay detention facilities, Link said.

Jail officials may also have to consider releasing people accused of nonviolent felonies, including burglaries, as the jails become overloaded with misdemeanor defendants who cannot be released, Tenwolde added.