Orange County Urged to Double Jail Capacity : Threat to Public Safety to Continue as Inmates Are Released to Relieve Crowding, Report Says

To keep pace with rising crime rates, Orange County must double its jail capacity in the next 6 years or continue to jeopardize public safety by granting early release to thousands of prisoners, according to county officials and a government forecast released last week.

The Major Corrections Needs Assessment Study, which the Board of Supervisors will consider Tuesday, projects the cost of jail construction needed by 1995 at more than $430 million in 1988 dollars, not adjusted for inflation.

But by the year 2006, the study said, the county will need to triple its current capacity, requiring $319 million more in unadjusted dollars.

To meet that need is a monumental task for a government so short of money that it has considered hundreds of layoffs just to balance its recent budgets. Some county administrators and politicians such as Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley say it may be impossible.

Riley predicted that funding problems and continued public opposition to new jail facilities will mean that the county’s overburdened jail system will grow increasingly overcrowded in the future.

“I wish it were possible to just push a button and have a jail there,” Riley said. “When you start thinking about the environmental reports, finding the money and, in this case, the opposition . . . it isn’t easy.”

Supervisor Roger R. Stanton added: “It is a very bleak picture. We are hit almost every day on a new front. If it’s not the homeless, it’s transportation or the jails. We’re already struggling to balance the budget. I’m not sure how in the world we can finance new jails.”

The correctional needs study, prepared by an outside consultant and a committee of county administrators, outlines the county’s plan to correct its deficiencies and to keep pace with future growth. The document is required by the state Board of Corrections if the county is to apply for state funding for new jails.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department operates three jail complexes in Santa Ana, Orange and El Toro with a total capacity of 3,199 beds. The system already is so overcrowded that on any given day the jails hold almost 4,200 inmates.

By 1995, increasing urbanization of Orange County will cause the jail population to swell to almost 6,800, according to the correctional needs study. By 2006, the number of inmates is projected to hit 9,850.

Early Releases

The Sheriff’s Department, which is under federal court order to control current overcrowding problems, said it turned away or granted early release last year to more than 43,000 arrestees who would have been incarcerated had space been available. By Feb. 5 of this year, records show, the department already had done the same with 3,100 more arrestees.

Law enforcement authorities say they have documented an increase in crime caused by the early releases. For example, they say prostitution has increased in Orange County, partly because the women know it is a place where, if arrested, they will soon be back at work.

“Because we have no place to put criminals, they are released onto the street before officers have a chance to file their reports,” Presiding Superior Court Judge Phillip E. Cox complained. “It is frustrating for the police, the courts and the public.”

Assistant Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael R. Capizzi added: “As fast as we prosecute them, they’re back on the streets. If you want a meaningful justice system, you have a meaningful deterrent--like jail.”

“It’s simple,” Capizzi said. “If a criminal knows he is going to be back on the street in a matter of days because there’s no room in the jail to hold him, he’s more likely going to keep committing crimes.”

The correctional needs study outlines three projects the county must build by 1995 to correct its overcrowding problem and keep pace with its future requirements:

- Expansion of the Theo Lacy branch jail in Orange from 622 beds to 1,326.

- Construction of a new jail near Anaheim Stadium--called the Katella-Douglas site--with 1,580 beds.

- Completion of the first phase of a massive jail planned in Gypsum Canyon near Anaheim, with 2,016 beds. Eventually, the Gypsum Canyon jail is projected to contain up to 6,720 beds.

The three projects would cost about $434 million. But so far, county officials have determined where they will get funding only for the Theo Lacy expansion.

If financing were readily available and community opposition did not exist, county officials say, the schedule for building the three projects would be feasible. But all three projects are extremely controversial and there is significant doubt about how to finance the last two.

Last week, the city of Orange refiled a lawsuit to block expansion of the Theo Lacy branch, just weeks before the county had hoped to begin construction. Then the University of California Board of Regents filed similar litigation, citing problems the expanded jail might cause for UCI Medical Center, which is in the same complex along The City Drive.

The county recently lost a 2-year lawsuit with Anaheim over jail construction on the Katella-Douglas site. The county has hired a consultant to do another environmental impact study for the project, as ordered by the judge. Some supervisors have said they don’t expect that the facility will ever be built.

In case the Anaheim facility cannot be built, the correctional needs study includes a plan to incorporate the beds planned for Katella-Douglas into the first phase of the Gypsum Canyon jail.

Citizen Opposition

But a citizens group opposed to the Gypsum Canyon facility already has qualified a measure for the June, 1990, ballot intended to kill the jail plans. Even if the measure fails, the group is optimistic that voters won’t approve a tax increase to pay for the construction.

The county is looking at several financing plans for the jail projects, all of which will require voter approval. The most likely alternative, county officials say, appears to be a half-cent sales tax.

But supervisors and political analysts caution that Orange County’s conservative electorate is notorious for rejecting higher taxes. The county overwhelmingly voted against a one-cent sales tax for new roads in 1984.

“But how else are we going to do it?” Judge Cox asked. “It seems to me that in a classy county where everything is modern and pretty, the voters would wake up and realize that our infrastructure is collapsing.

“The roads are too crowded, sewers are about to overflow and the jails are packed to the rafters,” he said. “Frankly, we don’t have much choice but to adopt a sales tax increase for new jails.”

Before putting the question to voters, the county plans a major get-tough-on-crime campaign, to be led by law enforcement officials.

Curiously, the correctional needs study says the public’s tougher attitude toward crime is the major reason for jail overcrowding.

“The primary contributing factor to the jail population growth has been the significant increase in the total average length of stay from 8.5 days in 1980 to . . . 16.2 days in 1986,” the report said. “Enhanced sentences reflecting the public’s hard stand on crime . . . have, across the state, resulted in increases in the average length of stay at an unprecedented rate.”

The report also notes that the current jail facilities were not made to hold the type of prisoner now in the corrections system.

The main men’s jail in Santa Ana was built in 1966 to hold prisoners in all security categories. But since most of the suspects charged with minor crimes today are released or sent to branch jails, the men’s jail now houses many more dangerous inmates than intended.

Impact of Crowding

Some cells in the men’s jail are arranged dormitory style, housing dozens of prisoners in the same room on bunk beds. The report says the design of the jail has prevented the Sheriff’s Department from properly segregating dangerous and vulnerable inmates from each other.

“Such overcrowding . . . has resulted in limiting the ability to separate victims from suspects, assaultive inmates from passive, and aged inmates and mentally disordered individuals from the general inmate population,” the report said.

Although the report does not include violence statistics or specific safety problems resulting from the housing situation, it concludes: “Such limitations jeopardize the safety of the inmates and staff, and decrease the ability of jail staff to manage the inmate population.”

Jack Pederson, deputy director of the state Board of Corrections, said Orange County’s situation is shared by many California urban areas.