Staving Off Final Straw

Frustration over the inability to solve the jail and court shortage was painfully apparent Monday when seven high-level officials from the county held a press conference, in part to chastise the San Diego City Council for deciding to hire more police officers while the rest of the criminal justice system is bursting at the seams.

The lineup was impressive: The presiding and assistant presiding judges of the Superior Court, the sheriff, the chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, the public defender, the chief probation officer and the assistant district attorney.

Their message was dramatic, if not new: The system, they said, is on the verge of “breakdown.”

And 116 more officers in the city of San Diego and 20 in Oceanside, and the thousands of arrests they will make, could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

If the message was not new, the show of force was, and it is a testament to the severity of the problem, which is growing faster than the solutions. It also showed the officials’ deep frustration with drug- and gang-related crime.

Similar frustration fueled the San Diego City Council’s impetuous police decision.

But, as Sheriff John Duffy and others pointed out, the added police may be self-defeating if the jails and courts cannot handle the additional load.

Already this year, civil trials had to be halted for three weeks to make room for criminal cases. And the statistics on jail overcrowding, while somewhat overstated, are nonetheless overwhelming. For instance, the central jail, which has a court-mandated cap of 1,050, has been holding more than 1,400 inmates.

It would be unfair to make the city a scapegoat for all of these problems. Courts and jails are the county’s responsibility, one that in years past was neglected.

But it’s not unfair to expect San Diego and other cities in the county to share some of the responsibility and to take into account how their actions affect the overall system. A few cities have already offered financial help, in an attempt to persuade the county to locate courts--and the law offices that go with them--in their communities.

San Diego, home of the main courthouse, has been slow to come forward, despite warnings that civil trials will have to be moved out of downtown without a larger courthouse. But recently, the city has begun discussions with the county regarding financial assistance for courts and a pretrial jail.

Those are the types of efforts that will be needed to get through the current crisis. Triage is being performed daily just to keep the justice system functioning. That situation is likely to continue for the foreseeable future as the county searches for ways to expand jails, court and staff, while waiting for the state Court of Appeal to rule on the validity of the recent sales tax increase.

The health of the justice system is at stake. If it collapses, as it is in danger of doing, a cornerstone of San Diego’s social and economic system will collapse with it.

But a coordinated, regional effort can help prevent that.