Block Asks Court Help in Cutting Jails’ Jam

Overcrowding in Los Angeles County jails will continue to get worse, sapping money from health and other services, unless changes are made in the criminal justice system, Sheriff Sherman Block told the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday as it began deliberations on a new budget.

Building new jails is not enough, Block said. “We simply cannot build our way out of this dilemma,” he said, calling for, among other things, fewer continuances in court cases and longer operating hours for the courts.

Block’s comments were contained in a letter to supervisors, released as the board took its first look at a proposed $9.2-billion spending plan for the new fiscal year, begining July 1.

The board members--often at odds with each other--joined in calling on Gov. George Deukmejian and the Legislature to provide the county with a share of the newly found $2.5-billion state surplus.

Optimism Expressed

Chief Administrative Officer Richard B. Dixon has expressed optimism that the county will receive a share of the surplus to avert proposed cuts in health and other services.

As a result, supervisors voted to maintain the existing level of services pending final adoption of the budget in mid-July. However, if state money is not forthcoming, a majority of the board made it clear that the cuts recommended by Dixon would not be supported.

Among the facilities targeted for closure in the proposed budget are the Pediatric Pavilion at County-USC Medical Center, eight public health centers, four welfare offices, 14 probation camps and five fire-suppression camps.

The sheriff runs one of the few departments in the proposed 1989-90 county budget to receive an increase in funding. A large part of the money is earmarked to operate the 2,064-bed North County Correctional Facility, scheduled to open in August at the Pitchess Honor Rancho.

Bit of Magic

But, Block said in his letter, “if, through some magical occurrence, all the jail facilities that we would need through the year 2010 suddenly appeared, all paid for and ready for occupancy, the county could not afford to maintain them.”

Currently, the average daily inmate population frequently exceeds 22,000, almost 9,000 over the capacity of 13,464. The population would be greater, Block said, if not for a court order requiring the sheriff to release offenders when the population reaches 22,000.

Block told supervisors that by the year 2000, the average daily jail population is projected to be 84,202, “four times the number of prisoners we have today.”

The sheriff projected that the cost for operating the jails would increase from $300 million in this year’s budget to $1.7 billion in the year 2000.

‘Large Slice’

“This is a disproportionately large slice of revenue that will surely have a significant impact upon almost every other function of county government,” he said.

Block advocated consideration of a half-cent sales tax increase to pay for the escalating jail costs.

But he focused mainly on changes he believes are needed in court operations.

“Persistent continuances and other defense strategies continue to create a bottleneck in the flow of prisoners through the system,” he said, citing the celebrated cases of accused Night Stalker Richard Ramirez, who has been in custody since August, 1985, and Raymond Buckey, a defendant in the McMartin child molestation case, who was only released on bail in February after spending five years in custody.

“There are other cases, less celebrated, where court delays have extended the incarceration of defendants by months and even years,” he said.