Jail Watchdog’s Role Proves Pivotal : Grossman Praised by Both Sides in Battle to Better Conditions

Bud Grossman says now that he really didn’t know what he was getting into two years ago, when a federal judge asked him to watch over Orange County’s attempts to clean up the mess in its jail system and he agreed to do it.

“I didn’t expect to be here this long,” he said in an interview last week. “I didn’t have any idea” what lay ahead. “I didn’t know the magnitude of the problem.”

Since signing on as special master for U.S. District Judge William P. Gray, Grossman has picked up another special master title from another judge, who has him monitoring the time it actually takes to get inmates out of jail once they are ordered released.

And, since January, Grossman has--with Gray’s approval--had yet another job, as a consultant for the county itself. In that capacity, he does more than count bodies behind bars; he looks at flaws in the system and suggests ways to overcome them.

A Pivotal Player

Clearly, the 58-year-old former federal prison warden has become a pivotal player in the county’s expensive and time-consuming efforts to solve the problem of jail overcrowding.

In the two years since Gray found Sheriff Brad Gates and the county supervisors in contempt of court for not complying with his 1978 order to improve conditions in the main men’s jail in Santa Ana, various supervisors have periodically criticized the judge.

But no one has criticized Grossman.

“I think Grossman in his role as a special master has done a good job,” Gates said last week. “He’s there to perform a job of providing figures to the judge. It’s a simple job, really.”

Roger R. Stanton, chairman of the Board of Supervisors, called Grossman “the finest example of a professional in the field of corrections I’ve had the privilege of meeting.”

In discussions, he has been “very open, very direct and very comprehensive in all the answers to your questions,” Stanton said. Grossman is “just exactly the type of person you need to give you information for a data base to make decisions.”

Nothing but Praise

Even Richard P. Herman, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer whose lawsuits against the county led to the contempt-of-court citation and the appointment of Grossman, has nothing but praise for the special master.

“If Bud Grossman were running the jail we wouldn’t have any jail problems,” Herman said.

Although Herman says he and Grossman “differ about a number of things,” he calls the special master “probably one of the most qualified penologists in the United States.”

“I do think the best thing the county ever did was hire Bud as a consultant,” Herman said. “The only thing I wish was that they’d listen to him now.”

Although his first name is Lawrence, everyone who deals with him calls him Bud. And in discussing possible solutions to the jail crisis, many conversations begin, “Bud Grossman thinks. . . .”

Late last Friday, Gates and the supervisors got a dose of the thoughts of consultant Grossman. Although no one had a chance to study his report in depth, it appeared to contain recommendations to please everyone.

Freeing Jail Space

As they had hoped, the supervisors were told that Grossman believes that some minimum-security inmates at the main jail can be transferred to empty beds at the branch jails, freeing space at the main jail for “violent and dangerous offenders.”

As Gates had hoped, Grossman told the supervisors that every jail bed now on the drawing boards is needed and there can be no delay in building the jails the county needs.

Despite the responsibility he shoulders and the high expectations everyone has for him, Grossman says he feels no pressure.

“In a sense, my job’s easy,” he said. “It’s the sheriff that’s got the tough job.”

He understands the strain on the supervisors, too.

“You don’t really want to spend your money on jails when you could be spending them on schools and hospitals,” he said.

But the intake-and-release center next to the main jail, scheduled to open this summer to handle inmates about to enter or about to leave the jail system, will not solve the county’s jail-overcrowding problems, Grossman said.

Crime Won’t Wait

“We need every bed that’s planned” for the center and every bed now likely to be built in the next decade. “Crime is not going to stop and wait for us to build the jails,” he said.

By the time he retired as an official of the federal prison system six years ago, Grossman had run or inspected every federal prison in the United States. He’s seen some of them again as a consultant. He also has been a consultant on jail or prison problems for New York City, the District of Columbia and the states of Kentucky, Alabama, Michigan, Missouri, California and Texas.

The Orange County system is not the worst he’s seen, “not by a long shot,” he said. But “there’s always room for improvement.”

Overcrowding is a problem plaguing jails and prisons across the country. Judges in numerous states have ordered improvements, ruling that prisoners and inmates have constitutional rights and those rights have been violated.

Last week, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department announced that the central county jail in downtown San Diego is too crowded to accept misdemeanor suspects any longer. Sheriff John Duffy is under a Superior Court order to limit the number of inmates at that jail.

“Throughout the United States, the bottom line of the court orders on corrections (systems) is improved corrections (systems),” Grossman said. “I think every professional will tell you that.”

And he said he believes that it is because he is a professional that he has won acceptance from all sides in the Orange County dispute.

He remembered walking into the Orange County Jail for the first time two years ago, right after his appointment by Gray. An assistant sheriff “told me I came highly recommended. I’m sure he asked around.”

Divergent Lists

When Gray told the county and the ACLU that he intended to appoint a special master, each side submitted names of candidates they favored. The lists were widely divergent.

Gray picked Grossman, who said he “assumed it would” work out to the satisfaction of both sides.

“If you are going to be monitored, you’d like to be monitored by someone who knows something about jails and prisons,” he said.

In the early days, he visited the jail daily. Now he comes by once or twice a week, making sure inmates have beds, get eight hours of undisturbed sleep and 15 minutes for a meal.

“It used to be, every time you walked in the jail, the first thing (the inmates) would do is holler, ‘Hey, look over here. Look at this crowding,’ ” Grossman remembered. “They don’t do that anymore.”

Working 40-Hour Weeks

In recent months, Grossman has worked nearly 40-hour weeks for the county, spending much of his time on consulting work paid for by the county administrative office and the Sheriff’s Department. He has inspected medical facilities in the jail, conducted an inmate-classification study and examined racial tensions in the system.

Grossman is paid $37.50 an hour for his work as special master and $50 an hour for his consulting work for the county.

When Gray appointed Grossman a special master, he told the supervisors he would use the fine he had levied against the county to pay Grossman. How much longer that job will last is uncertain, Grossman says.

“My job with the county,” he said, “is to put me out of a job.”