Prison Breakthrough

The governor and the Legislature have finally agreed on a compromise that breaks the state prison deadlock after several years of partisan bickering. Three sites will be considered for one or two prisons in Los Angeles County.

The compromise will unlock two new prisons kept shuttered by the stalemate despite severe overcrowding throughout the penal system. The prisons have remained empty for months because state law links the selection of a site in Los Angeles County with the opening of new prisons elsewhere. Inmates are finally expected to move into the 2,200-bed medium-security prison in San Diego and the 400-bed women’s prison near Stockton next week.

What the last-minute compromise doesn’t do, however, is identify exactly where the prison will be built in Los Angeles County. Gov. George Deukmejian and his Republican colleagues continue to favor a controversial site in a Democratic stronghold two miles east of the Los Angeles Civic Center. The Democrats prefer a controversial site in Republican territory in rural Lancaster. The third site, out in the high desert near Gorman, is uninhabited.

The compromise, barely days old, has already been subjected to varying interpretations. Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside), the persistent architect of the prison legislation, sees the compromise as either two prisons, in downtown Los Angeles and in Lancaster, or one large prison, near Gorman. The governor sees it as his pick of two out of the three sites. The differing opinions should not be allowed to bog down progress.

Los Angeles County accounts for 38% of the state’s prisoners. It is only fair that the county share the burden of housing the inmates. The governor and the state’s political leadership should continue to compromise so that a prison, or two, is finally built.