‘Relief Valve’ Jail Intake-Release Center Expected to Open July 20

The $60-million jail annex that will be a relief valve for the county’s overcrowded main men’s facility will probably open July 20, Sheriff Brad Gates said Wednesday.

The court-appointed monitor of the jail situation said the delay is not likely to cause problems if Gates continues his efforts to keep the number of inmates below the maximum set by U.S. District Judge William P. Gray.

Gates appeared before the Orange County Board of Supervisors a day after it was told that the branch jail, known as the Intake and Release Center, might not open until September because of the time needed to train guards and medical staff, get computers operating and ensure that there are no security problems. It was originally scheduled to open June 23.

“Hope Date” of July 20

“We’re looking at a hope date of July 20 if everything works right,” Gates said.

He said computer problems would be the most likely cause of delay in getting the new building operating. It will take several weeks to get the machines installed and working trouble-free, he said.

Meanwhile, the sheriff set the stage for a possible future clash with the supervisors, warning that he will still need more maximum-security beds for male inmates and insisting that inmates in the main jail are too dangerous to be transferred to branch jails in Orange and El Toro.

The supervisors have ordered a study of Gates’ system for classifying inmates into minimum-, maximum- or medium-risk categories, hoping that if Gates’ system is found to be too rigorous some inmates can be sent to the branch jails, relieving the pressure on the main facility.

Gates said one consideration under discussion is to transfer female inmates of the main jail to an as-yet-unbuilt structure at the Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange, freeing for men 300 beds now used by women.

On Tuesday, Supervisor Don R. Roth said he was told by Sheriff’s Department officials during a tour of the main jail a day earlier that the center might not open until August or September. The other three supervisors said they thought that the new building, next to the main jail in downtown Santa Ana, would be ready to house inmates when construction is completed, June 23.

But Gates said Wednesday that in past months and as recently as last Thursday he told supervisors’ aides that “June 23 was not a date when that facility was going to be filled with 400 inmates.”

And after Wednesday’s board meeting Gates told reporters that “none of this should be news to any of those individuals. . . . I met with every supervisor personally in the last two weeks, talking about these issues.”

Board Chairman Roger R. Stanton asked special jail monitor Lawrence G. Grossman, who was in the audience, for his reaction to the delayed opening of the Intake and Release Center, which was originally scheduled to be completed in April.

Grossman, appointed by Judge Gray to oversee the county’s efforts to reduce the population at the jail, said Gates has done an “outstanding job” in keeping the number of inmates down. He said that if the sheriff keeps using alternatives to incarceration, the county will have enough beds to house all maximum-security inmates until the center opens without violating Gray’s orders.

Two years ago Gray found Gates and the supervisors in contempt for not obeying his 1978 order to end overcrowding in the jail. He fined the county, appointed Grossman as monitor, and began reducing the number of inmates that could be held at the jail.

From more than 2,200 inmates two years ago, the jail population has dropped to about 1,400. Gray has insisted that no more than 1,298 be kept in the main housing units.

Gates said the center will have 288 beds for male maximum-security inmates and another 112 or so for women, inmates receiving medical treatment and others.

He said he will ask Gray if some cells can have double bunks. In the unlikely event the judge gives the county all the double bunks it wants, the building could hold an additional 184 maximum-security male inmates.

Gates complained again that one of the current alternatives to putting people in jail violates the law.

“We are violating the law every day by not being able to book (people arrested for not answering) warrants and bench warrants issued by Municipal and Superior courts,” Gates said. “We do not have sufficient maximum-security beds.”

Committed Felonies

“These are people who have committed felonies,” Gates said. “I give them a ticket, and they go out the door. They don’t show up in court, a judge issues another warrant, I give them another ticket and they go out the door again.”

Gates noted that Municipal Court judges had complained about that practice recently, and he said he believed that “the local courts here are very close to holding me and the county in contempt” for not jailing people over warrants.

Although the supervisors won Gates’ agreement to study Grossman’s eventual report on the sheriff’s system to classify inmates, he strongly defended his system.

“If anyone believes that they can take a maximum-security prisoner out of my main jail downtown and put him in the tents (at the El Toro branch jail) and maintain safety, I have to disagree,” Gates said.

The supervisors hired Grossman as their jail consultant several months ago, saying they saw no conflict with his working simultaneously for the judge who held them in contempt.