Shuttling of Misdemeanor Suspects From S.D. to Jail in Vista Will End

In a move that pleased city officials in Vista, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department agreed Thursday to stop shuttling misdemeanor suspects from San Diego to the County Jail in Vista.

Under a plan approved by a San Diego Superior Court judge, misdemeanor suspects arrested in the San Diego area will be booked and released from County Jail downtown, instead of being sent up to Vista.

The Sheriff’s Department, which runs the county’s jails, in early April instituted the program of transporting people suspected of nonviolent misdemeanor crimes to Vista as part of an effort to ease overcrowding at the downtown jail.

But authorities at the Vista jail, which itself already is jammed beyond capacity, were forced in most cases to release the suspects ferried up from San Diego within hours of their arrival.

Loitering in the Area

Although the suspects were typically given a bus token to return to the San Diego area, they often would loiter in Vista or surrounding cities, creating a problem for local residents, according to Vista Mayor Gloria McClellan.

“It was just becoming a mess,” McClellan said Thursday. “We’re like Sleepy Hollow here in Vista. We notice anything that’s different. The suspects who were released just couldn’t mold themselves in here.”

During a one-week period in May, for instance, San Diego police took more than 650 people to Vista for booking, said Cmdr. Mel Nichols of the Sheriff’s Department. Those extra inmates placed a strain on booking officers at the Vista facility--and generally resulted in suspects being sent onto the streets shortly after their arrival.

McClellan said she and other officials have observed that some men and women just released from the Vista jail walk to a nearby commercial strip and attempt to solicit customers for prostitution.

Bothering Schoolchildren

In addition, the principal at a Catholic school near the Vista jail has reported several incidents during the past month, among them men from the jail soliciting money from the schoolchildren, joking with the pupils about drugs, disrobing on the school grounds and leaving clothing in the girls’ restroom.

McClellan said she was pleased that suspects from the downtown jail no longer will be shuttled to Vista, noting that she did not feel “it was right that we should absorb San Diego’s problem.”

The Sheriff’s Department began transporting misdemeanor suspects in vans to Vista to avoid putting too many inmates in the Central Detention Facility in San Diego, which is under a 1980 court order that prohibits more than 750 inmates.

Under the new procedures approved Thursday by Superior Court Judge James A. Malkus, the Sheriff’s Department now can book and hold suspects in misdemeanor cases for as long as four hours at the central jail without having them counted toward the inmate population cap.

Formal Review Urged

While Malkus agreed to allow the new procedure to go forward, he stressed that a formal review should take place by the end of December.

“This court is concerned about having any dangerous individuals released on the streets because of a shortage of jail space,” Malkus said. “It won’t be tolerated.”

Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache, commander of the central jail, said the new procedures would require “some minor modifications, like installation of a few phones, but I anticipate we might be able to begin this process as early as (tonight).”

The program, which must go into effect by June 1 at the latest, will help ease the extreme overcrowding at the Vista jail, which is designed to house 246 prisoners but has held as many as 540 in recent weeks, authorities said.

“What the judge has done is given us some breathing room until some other (county jail) facility becomes available,” said sheriff’s Cmdr. Mel Nichols. “It had become an intolerable situation at (the Vista) facility.”

Easier Procedures

Alex Landon, the defense attorney who obtained the 1980 court order while representing several central jail inmates, said Thursday that the procedures would be easier for misdemeanor suspects arrested in San Diego.

“I think it’s unfortunate to have to bring people all the way to Vista and then leave them many miles from where they had been residing or staying,” Landon said. “To the extent that this new procedure allows people to be released closer to their point of origin, that’s better.”

McClellan agreed that the new system would be a plus for all concerned, but stressed that it was far from a solution to the overall problem of overcrowded jails in San Diego County. Although county voters recently rejected a bond measure that would have provided money for construction of a new jail, McClellan said area lawmakers need to again push for adoption of such a measure.

“This puts us back to block one, but it doesn’t solve the long-range problem,” she said.