Empty Prison Bunks

The prisoners sleep everywhere: in cells, hallways, day rooms, chapels and gyms. More than 62,000 inmates are jammed into prisons designed to house roughly 35,000. The state has not a cell to spare and no sane reason to let a bed remain unused, but because of a political stalemate, the state has plenty of empty cells.

Nineteen hundred new bunks remain untouched at the new men’s prison in San Diego. Four hundred new beds remain unused at the new women’s prison in Stockton. Meanwhile, Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp warns that prison overcrowding could cause “a deadly Attica-style explosion” in California reminiscent of the fatal eruption in New York state 16 years ago.

The bunks are empty because state law says no new prison can accept inmates until a new prison site is picked in Los Angeles County, which contributes 38% of the inmates to state prisons without having a prison itself. Gov. George Deukmejian picked a site near downtown Los Angeles more than two years ago, but construction of a prison there has been deadlocked for 18 months by political bickering. The property owners got tired of waiting and sold the land.

Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) has offered compromise legislation that would allow the state to build two prisons in Los Angeles County, one on a downtown site and another in a rural area. The deadlock would be broken.

Everyone would save face and the state would get two new prisons to relieve the overcrowding. The bill has gone nowhere, but meetings with representatives of the governor and the Democratic leadership in the Legislature are scheduled to begin today.

The stalemate in Sacramento hasn’t stopped more inmates from pouring into severely crowded prisons. As the convicts double up, empty bunks go begging. The governor and the lawmakers should compromise on a Los Angeles County site or sites and open those empty prisons.