It’s Time to Hear from Sheriff Duffy

Significant progress has been made this year toward relieving the dangerous crowding at the county’s jails, which at times are housing more than five times as many inmates as they were built to accommodate.

By next month, inmates will no longer be forced to sleep on the floor, the result of the settlement of a lawsuit, the expansion of the Las Colinas women’s jail and the opening of the adjacent 580-bed temporary jail for men in Santee.

The new beds won’t end crowding. But they should make conditions more bearable and relieve some of the tension that threatens the safety of deputies and inmates. The settlement also sets a timetable to further reduce crowding over the next two to three years, as the expansion at the Vista jail is completed and the sales-tax increase approved in June begins to produce more jails.

But, although there is real progress on reducing jail crowding, not yet addressed are equally serious problems of alleged abuse by the deputies manning the jails and Sheriff John Duffy’s seemingly cavalier attitude toward the accusations.

The allegations have resulted in investigations by the FBI, the U. S. attorney’s office and the county grand jury. But little has been heard from Duffy, the elected official responsible for the jails.

The allegations are not just coming from inmates. Recently, an electrical contractor who worked at the County Jail in Vista and a lawyer who had been visiting her client at the central jail downtown claimed to have been abused.

The contractor said, in his $80,000 claim against the county, that he was arrested, strip-searched and forced to stand naked in a padded cell after deputies said he failed to move his tools away from inmates--facts that the Sheriff’s Department doesn’t dispute. The attorney, who was not wearing proper identification when she came out of the meeting with her client, said she was pushed to the floor and struck by deputies. She filed a claim against the county and, when that was rejected, she sued.

Claims do not prove abuse. And the overcrowding undoubtedly has increased confrontations between deputies and inmates.

But it’s getting harder to give the Sheriff’s Department the benefit of the doubt, especially when Duffy refuses to take a strong leadership role.

San Diego County needs a sheriff who makes it clear by what he says and by his actions that abuse will not be tolerated. The deputies need to know that, and the public needs to know that. The public also needs to know that claims are thoroughly and fairly investigated, something we hope will soon be accomplished through the federal and grand jury probes.

But San Diego should not have to turn to the U. S. attorney’s office to find out if the jails are being run properly. Perhaps it’s time to consider establishing a civilian board to review complaints against the Sheriff’s Department.

As the recent vote for a police review board in the city of San Diego indicated, the public wants more accountability by law enforcement officials.