Double-Bunking of 216 Cells in New Jail OKd by State Board

The state Board of Corrections decided Wednesday not to penalize Orange County if it violates state standards by double-bunking 216 cells in its year-old Santa Ana jail.

The unanimous decision clears the way for the county to add the prisoners to its Intake and Release Center as a way to relieve overcrowding in other county jails and lower the number of arrested persons released before trial.

Although the board could have threatened sanctions as severe as demanding repayment of more than $50 million in state funds used by the county for the construction project, board members said they were convinced that double-bunking the new jail would be better than the continued overcrowding of the county’s other detention facilities.

The board did insist that the county add 14 sheriff’s deputies and six other employees to supervise the new prisoners. And the waiver of sanctions was contingent upon final approval from the state fire marshal, which is expected within the next 2 weeks.

“We’re very pleased,” Assistant Sheriff Jerry R. Krans said after the decision. “This doesn’t solve all of our overcrowding problem, but it’s a step in the right direction.”

The board’s action was criticized by Paul Comiskey, legal director of the state Prisoners Rights Union, a private organization that advocates prisoner rights. He said the board should have held Orange County to its promise not to put more than one inmate in each of the new jail’s 384 cells. The county had to make that pledge in order to receive $50.1 million in state money to build the Intake and Release Center and remodel the old central jail.

“They’ve made a mockery of their own standards,” Comiskey said. “They might as well not have them if they’re going to waive them so readily.”

Comiskey, who attended the meeting but did not address the board, suggested afterward that the county re-evaluate its jail program to see if more prisoners could be released on their own recognizance pending trial.

Krans, however, said the county is already releasing as many arrestees as it safely can--more than 43,000 last year. He said the only alternative to double-bunking the new jail would be to triple-bunk the central jail in Santa Ana or have inmates sleep on mats on the floor, but the county was ordered by a federal judge not to use either of those options.

Krans showed the board members pictures of the jail interior in an attempt to demonstrate that deputies could adequately guard against cellmates injuring or harassing each other. And he pointed out that the jail was actually designed with double-bunking in mind, so that each prisoner will still have 40 square feet of cell space and 40 square feet of day-room space, 10 more square feet than required.

The double-bunking should last only until the county builds a new 3,744-bed jail in Gypsum Canyon, construction of which is not expected to begin before 1990.

In reality, the Board of Corrections had little leverage over the county. The board’s standards can only be enforced as long as there is an active contract between the state, which paid for the jail, and the county, which built it. Once the contract expires, which in this case will be in April, the state can find the county in violation but cannot enforce the standards.

Board member Robert Von Esch, a Fullerton attorney, said he favored waiving penalties for Orange County because the county’s plan made more sense than the state standards, which require at least one-third of the county’s jail cells to be single cells.

“The standard really should be that the facility has the duty to provide housing in such a manner as to not provide unreasonable risk of harm to the inmates or guards,” Von Esch said.