Studies Challenge Idea of Property Value Drop, More Crime Near Jails

Rising crime rates and falling property values, the rallying points of opposition to a proposed 6,191-inmate jail in Gypsum Canyon, may be a myth, according to studies included in an environmental impact report prepared for the Orange County Board of Supervisors.

In fact, the report says, crime rates are lower and property values have risen faster in some communities with correctional facilities than in cities without them.

But not everyone is convinced.

“I’ve never had anyone ask me to help them find a home near a jail,” said Joe Lins, manager of a Coldwell Banker real estate branch in Yorba Linda.

Last week’s 3-2 decision by the Board of Supervisors to locate what may be the nation’s largest jail facility on 245 acres in Gypsum Canyon prompted a torrent of protest and a chorus of vows to fight the plan to the bitter end. The lines are clearly drawn, and the strongest opposition comes from homeowners nearest the site.

Fears May Be Misguided

County officials say studies on the socioeconomic impact of jails on the communities around them are too inconclusive to allow them to predict what effect the new Orange County jail will have on the surrounding area. But the studies included in the draft environmental impact report submitted to the supervisors in May indicate the fears of nearby homeowners may be misguided.

“I’d rather have a concert hall in my backyard than a prison, but I’m not sure it would be any safer,” said Jerry Hawes, a consultant to the state Senate office of research and author of one of the studies cited in the report.

There is solid evidence that crime rates and property values are not worsened by a correctional facility, Hawes said in an interview Friday.

“If you want to oppose a prison, and everybody does, then you have got to come up with better reasons than those,” he said.

Values Rose Quicker

In fact, studies included in the environmental impact report showed that property values in some locations near prisons actually had risen more quickly than in comparable locations far from prisons, but Hawes said he could not explain that phenomenon.

The new jail complex, with separate facilities for maximum- and medium-security inmates, will have a larger inmate capacity than Los Angeles County’s downtown central jail, now the nation’s largest, according to Jack Pederson, field representative for the state Board of Corrections. The Los Angeles jail was built to house 5,276 inmates, but it far exceeded that capacity last year with a daily average of 7,883 prisoners.

The Gypsum Canyon site, south of the Riverside Freeway and east of Anaheim Hills, was chosen over three other possible sites for an Orange County jail intended to be “remote” from population centers. Another vote to give final certification to that selection has been scheduled for Aug. 12 by the Board of Supervisors.

Another environmental impact report will be prepared. It will focus specifically on Gypsum Canyon and neighboring Coal Canyon, where ancillary facilities including a sheriff’s and fire department training academy, weapons range and emergency communications post are proposed for 49.7 acres.

The adequacy of the current environmental impact report, prepared for the county’s Environmental Management Agency by consultant LSA Associates of Irvine, is likely to be challenged if jail opponents make good on threats to sue to halt the construction.

‘Somewhat Parochial’

The report notes that the studies it cites may be “somewhat parochial to each state or area.” But it also says the studies “are valuable as insights or predictors of similar findings which could be expected here.”

For the most part, the studies mentioned in the report deal with prisons, rather than jails. And its authors concede that prisons and jails can have “different security classifications.” Prison inmates are convicted felons, while most jail inmates are awaiting trial or have been convicted of misdemeanors and are serving sentences of no more than a year.

But the report concludes that “community perceptions of jail or prison siting are seen as relatively identical.”

The Gypsum Canyon jail complex will be comparable in numbers of inmates to most of the larger California state prisons. The county’s current environmental impact report says that correctional “facilities coexist with normal neighborhood activities such as residences, businesses, office buildings, industries, shopping centers and recreational facilities.”

‘A Serious Threat’

Some are skeptical about that conclusion.

On June 22, trustees of the Placentia Unified School District voted unanimously to oppose the Gypsum Canyon site. In a letter to the county, the trustees said, “The nature of this facility in this location and the people and activities it will attract represents a serious threat to the safety and security of the residents and students.”

Yorba Linda City Manager Arthur C. Simonian also was not persuaded by the county’s environmental impact report.

“To merely gather studies from other parts of the state and nation . . . does not necessarily prove a cause-effect relationship,” Simonian wrote in a letter of protest. “Many of the homeowners in eastern Yorba Linda paid a premium for homes located in a rural area and purchased their homes based on views across the canyon.”

The Gypsum Canyon site is about 1 1/2 miles from existing residential areas in Anaheim Hills and not much farther from Yorba Linda homes, located across the Riverside Freeway to the north. Another 10,000 homes are planned for the upper-middle-class communities, where house prices range from $100,000 to as much as $800,000.

No ‘Panic Flight’

Though Coldwell Banker’s Lins foresees no “panic flight” from the community, he added: “I don’t think the facility will help matters.

“People won’t be leaving in mass numbers, but some homeowners will sell,” Lins said. “I was looking for a home in Yorba Linda, but I’m taking a second look about relocating there. There’s enough concern about our kids walking to and from school today. The presence of a prison facility only makes me more apprehensive.”

Drawing on government, private and university studies from Florida, Wisconsin, Alabama, Canada and California, however, the county’s current environmental impact report says:

“In many cities, areas adjacent to prisons are flourishing with housing, business activity, shopping and recreation. In nearly every case studied, the values of the properties within three miles of the prison had risen more than the properties in the same communities farther away.”

A study conducted by the state of Alabama found that real estate values nearest the Kilby Correctional Facility Complex in Montgomery are 14.4% greater than the median city value.

Most Expensive Tract

“It is also the most expensive tract in the city,” according to the study, which adds that tracts near the prison grew faster than tracts elsewhere.

In California, one study compared the prison community of Chino to the demographically similar city of Santa Maria. Property values increased nearly 50% in Chino compared to 38.6% in Santa Maria from 1979 to 1983.

During that four-year period, in “11 of the 15 cities that matched prison cities, property values actually increased at a slower rate than in those cities with prisons.”

The new jail may stimulate development around it, according to the report, but some have expressed concerns about the type of development.

Consequently, when supervisors approved the Gypsum Canyon site they deleted its proposed intake-release center, a source of concern for many residents. Without the intake-release center, new “indirect land uses” such as bail bondsmen’s offices would be eliminated, the report says. The jail’s inmates would be booked and released elsewhere, probably at jail facilities in downtown Santa Ana.

‘They Are Credible’

“We were not using the studies to show that property values will increase,” said Michael M. Ruane of the county’s Environmental Management Agency. “They represent the available documented research nationwide on this particular issue. They are credible.

“I don’t think we are using them to discount people’s fears,” he said. “We are using them to represent that we have looked at (the issue) exhaustively.”

Jail opponents have voiced their disagreement with the studies’ findings, Ruane said, but have submitted no empirical evidence to show that jails decrease property values or increase crime rates.

On the other hand, the studies’ findings are stated in almost absolute terms.

“Every study showed that there is no direct evidence that a prison produces an increase in local crime,” the report says. “In fact, one study indicated that most cities with prisons showed a lower than normal crime rate.”

The report quotes from The Socioeconomic Impacts of State Prison-Siting on the Local Community, a 1985 study prepared by the Florida International University Joint Center for Environmental and Urban Problems.

More Aware of Penalties

The belief that jail visitors commit crimes while in the vicinity is based on the assumptions that “friends and relatives of criminals are more likely to commit crimes and . . . commit crimes wherever they go,” the Florida study says.

But the report adds that it is “equally plausible” that visitors to jails are “more aware of the high penalties involved with committing crimes” and, therefore, are less likely to break the law when traveling to and from a jail.

An Alabama study concluded: “Fears about escaping inmates are generally unfounded as most inmates who escape immediately leave the area, and those who do not are soon captured.”

A 1985 study by the California state Senate office of research concluded that “prisons neither create an environment which encourages crime nor attract a ‘criminal element’ which negatively impacts on that community’s safety.”

Moreover, the state Senate study found that “crime rates tend to be lower in those cities affiliated with a prison than in similar cities” without prisons.

Crime Rate Below

After comparing nine California prison communities, such as Salinas, Vacaville and Tracy, with 15 other demographically similar California cities, the report found:

“The crime rate for seven cities associated with a prison was 22% below the aggregate crime rate for similar cities without prisons.”

The report concluded that the California findings “bear out the argument that the presence of a prison facility serves as a public reminder and deterrent” to crime.

There were doubters when the county first published some of these findings in a 1986 draft environmental impact report for a smaller proposed jail in Anaheim.

Additional research was conducted for the environmental report submitted to the supervisors in May. The environmental report for a San Diego County jail was reviewed and discussions were held with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department regarding a major jail expansion there.

Some May Not Agree

“The result of this research is that no new evidence is available that would change the conclusion . . .,” the current environmental impact report says.

The report also notes the obvious: “It is recognized that some residents of the county may not agree with the county’s assessment.”

Lois Barke, Bob Bennyhoff and Bill Leming are three Orange County residents in that category.

They signed a July 2 letter of complaint on behalf of a citizens group calling itself the Citizens Committee for Logical and Sensible Siting of Jails.

“In truth,” their letter read, “if a maximum security jail were truly a desirable neighbor, then every city in Orange County would be actively competing to attract this public facility to their city rather than working so actively to ensure that it is built in someone else’s backyard.”

Times researcher Deborrah Wilkinson contributed to this story.