Countywide

County jailers won a one-week extension Friday of their reprieve from another overcrowding crisis, but the outline of a longer-term solution to the space woes remained unclear.

Presiding Judge Frederic Link of San Diego Municipal Court extended an order allowing sheriff’s deputies to continue their longstanding practice of releasing without bail many of the people they arrest on outstanding misdemeanor warrants.

Sheriff John Duffy briefly halted the cite-and-release program early last month after an opinion by Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp that it was prohibited by state law. But Link allowed the releases to resume when jail officials warned that curtailing them had begun to jam the county’s already-overcrowded jails.

Link said he expects to announce some temporary solutions to the dilemma next week.