Deputies Say Recent Jail Understaffing Poses Possible Peril

The Orange County sheriff’s deputies union charged Monday that the Sheriff’s Department recently has been staffing the main men’s jail in Santa Ana below its own minimum standards, jeopardizing the safety of the deputies and the inmates.

Robert MacLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said the situation has already caused tense and potentially explosive incidents at the jail that normally would have been handled easily.

“In a number of incidents, it has been very touch and go as to whether safety was going to be maintained,” MacLeod said. “They are operating the main jail at staffing levels that are not adequate to ensure the safety of the deputies or the inmates.”

Denial From Spokesman

A spokesman for Sheriff Brad Gates declined to comment on jail staffing, citing security considerations, but he denied that the safety of deputies or inmates has been jeopardized.

However, several officials, both in county administration and in the supervisors’ offices, confirmed the Sheriff’s Department’s new staffing practice and said they were told that it was in response to fiscal constraints.

Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Richard J. Olson also declined to discuss whether the department has been forced to change its staffing policies because of recent money shortages.

“The staffing levels are not talked about,” Olson said. “I am not going to discuss the inner security of the jail.”

“The department’s priority concern--and I want to stress that priority--is the safety of the deputies and the inmates,” Olson said. If the department believes that safety is jeopardized, it would increase the staff, he added.

MacLeod said the problem began about six weeks ago when the Sheriff’s Department instituted a policy of not replacing the first four deputies who called in sick on any one shift. Under the policy, if five deputies are unexpectedly absent on one shift, the department calls in one replacement officer.

At least once, however, MacLeod claimed, seven deputies were absent and not replaced. Depending on the shift, MacLeod said there are between 24 and 32 deputies in the main jail guarding about 1,400 inmates.

In some cases, when absent deputies have not been replaced, MacLeod said, staffing levels in the jail have been below the department’s minimum standards.

On one evening, MacLeod said deputies were warned to be prepared for a possible fight among a particular group of inmates. Because the jail-staffing level was low, the deputies were told to abandon some of their “fixed” positions if the fight broke out, contrary to sheriff’s policy, MacLeod charged.

The fight did not occur. But if the deputies had responded as they had planned, MacLeod said the first two floors of the jail--housing hundreds of prisoners--would have been guarded by only one deputy each.

“Of course, the inmates are all locked down,” he said. “But if there was ever a fight among the inmates, (the deputy) would just have to watch.”

There were murmurs among some county officials that the jail-staffing issue might be an effort at political posturing by the Sheriff’s Department just before a difficult budget-negotiation season is about to begin. Like most county departments, the Sheriff’s Department is expected to sustain significant budget cuts next year.

But most officials said they believed that the sheriff was sincerely trying to stay within a tight budget, even though it caused grief among the deputies. They added that they are confident in the sheriff’s assessment that safety is not being jeopardized.

“If they thought they were going to compromise safety and they needed more money, they would not have stood for it,” said Doug Woodyard, who monitors the jails for the county administrative office. “They decide what is a safety issue.”