Jail Double-Bunk Plan Has Hitch: No Guards

Now that Orange County finally has approval from the state to bunk two inmates instead of one in each cell of a new jail facility in Santa Ana, officials say they don’t have the money for additional guards needed to watch the extra prisoners.

The situation has created a paradox in which more than 200 jail beds--ready to be filled--will remain empty even though officials say overcrowding continues to force the release of more than a hundred suspected or convicted criminals a day who would otherwise be incarcerated.

“We can ask the sheriff to take it out of his hide,” Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley joked out of frustration. “It just does something to you when you have these people who have been found guilty of crimes and you can’t keep them in jail because you don’t have the (guards) the state says you have to have.”

Adding a second bunk to newly constructed jail cells is normally a violation of state Board of Corrections regulations. But last week the board voted to help relieve Orange County’s serious jail overcrowding problem by not penalizing the county for so-called “double bunking” in 216 of the 384 cells at the new Intake-Release Center in Santa Ana.

At the Board of Corrections meeting in Sacramento, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said they would need 14 more deputies to guard the extra prisoners. So the board made the added deputies a condition of its approval.

But now, Associate County Administrative Officer John Sibley said, officials are studying whether they could safely staff the Intake-Release Center, double-bunked, with fewer added guards.

Norma Lammers, executive director of the Board of Corrections, said that that could be a violation of the board’s order and that it might expose the county to sanctions.

But there is an odd aspect to the state’s regulations: The Board of Corrections only has authority to penalize a county while the jail in question is under construction. Technically, the construction contract for the Intake-Release Center expires in April, even though it has been open since early last year.

“In actuality, they (county officials) can go ahead and wait until the end of the contract and our orders go back to being advisory,” Lammers said.

Sibley said county officials are considering just that. “I would agree that that is an option,” he said. “I would not call it a strategy.”

Assistant Sheriff Jerry Krans, who made the recommendation for 14 new deputies, said he has not studied whether the Santa Ana facility could be safely staffed with fewer guards. If the 14 guards are not hired, he said, it is possible that the Sheriff’s Department would only fill some of the extra bunks.

No Concerns Expressed

“We are not going to do anything that sacrifices safety,” he said.

Robert McLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, said he has not heard deputies express any safety concerns about the proposed double bunking.

But the Board of Corrections has heard a complaint from Dick Herman, a volunteer attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. Herman has previously sued the county over jail conditions.

“Double bunking ‘on the cheap’ will necessarily lead to prisoner-to-prisoner violence which single cells were intended to eliminate,” Herman wrote in a letter to the state board. “The increase in assaults, homosexual rape, death and disease which stems from double bunking requires significantly more staff and facilities than a single cell jail.”

The county’s existing maximum-security jail, next to the new Intake-Release Center, already has double bunking.

Lammers said the state’s requirement for single cells is intended to protect vulnerable inmates--such as young or mentally disturbed people--from the prison population and to isolate inmates known to be excessively violent.

Orange County has had a seriously overcrowded jail system for more than 10 years. The Board of Corrections has rated its capacity at about 3,000 inmates, but it now houses more than 4,000 on any given day.

‘Least Dangerous’ Released

In addition, Krans said that last year 43,675 suspected or convicted criminals were either turned away from the jail or given an early release to ease the overcrowding. Those who were turned away were mostly charged with misdemeanor crimes, he said. Some who were released before completing their complete sentences, however, were convicted of felonies.

Krans said the department attempts to release the “least dangerous” criminals. But he added that some have been arrested for new crimes that they wouldn’t have been able to commit had they remained in jail.

In addition to the 14 requested deputies, sheriff’s officials told the Board of Corrections that they would need 16 more clerical staff workers to process the additional inmates. The total annual cost for those new positions was estimated at $1.65 million.

Just last month, however, Orange County was facing a $23-million budget shortfall that had threatened the jobs of more than 1,200 county employees. County officials managed to avert the layoffs and balance the budget with several belt-tightening measures and new funds from the state. But the budget remains very tight for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends June 30.

Sibley said county officials are checking for money they could use to pay for additional deputies. But he said no funds have been identified.

“We’ve got options,” he said. “We’ve just got to figure out what we’re going to do.”