How Crowding at County Jail Helps Drunk Drivers

Orange County is facing a crisis of major proportions, but the people and their decision makers, the county Board of Supervisors, are still ignoring the problem, hoping it will go away. Instead of making plans to build a new jail of adequate size, the supervisors compromise public safety and justice for victims.

Two recent stories highlight this problem. On Aug. 23 it was reported that it took three patrol cars and a motorcycle officer to remove from Interstate 5 a drunk driver witnessed in the act of repeatedly shooting out of his car window at the center divider. This person was later released on his own recognizance simply because the jail was overcrowded. The actions of this person could have resulted in death and serious injury to countless motorists.

Then four days later The Times reported that the county supervisors approved home jail for work-furlough inmates. No intimation was made that this was a major reversal of current, more effective, jail procedures. For eight years the supervisors have ignored the jail overcrowding, and now the people of Orange County are asked to pay the heavy price for this negligence.

Currently, according to jail officials, all misdemeanor arrestees are being cited and released, without posting bail, within four hours. No mug shots are taken or full fingerprints, making it difficult to prosecute those who use false identification. If individuals are already breaking the law, what are the chances that they will actually appear? Or do we have to wait until they are arrested again, or kill an innocent victim?

Mothers Against Drunk Drivers is working very hard to put tougher laws on the books and to secure appropriate guilty verdicts and appropriate sentences for convictions. All of this effort is in jeopardy because of jail and prison overcrowding.

The message the supervisors propose to send to drunk drivers in Orange County (who kill more than 135 county men, women, and children a year) is that driving under the influence and maiming and killing is not a serious offense. The worst that can happen is that after a few months room and board at the jail, they will have to send someone else to the store to buy their booze!

This home-jail program only provides more excuses for the alcoholics to deny that they have a problem. This simply removes adequate consequences and enhances denial.

Cite-and-release, jail overcrowding and the home-jail program together point to a Band-Aid solution that simply will not work. We need a new jail. We demand that our supervisors face up to their responsibility.

LAURIE McCARTHY

KAREN KRONE

JANET CATER

McCarthy, Krone and Cater are members of the Orange County Chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.