Supervisors to Study Housing Inmates in Shipping Containers

Citing critical crowding in the existing county jails and a shortage of funds to build new ones, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to explore the possibility of housing inmates in tents and used shipping containers.

By a unanimous vote, with Supervisor Leon Williams absent, the board directed Chief Administrative Officer Norman Hickey to report back within a month on the feasibility of using tents, containers, wooden and metal trailers, and concrete and stucco assemblies in jail construction.

“These may not be perfect solutions, but they are solutions,” said Supervisor Susan Golding, who proposed the study. “We don’t have any others right now.”

Golding acknowledged that the county’s chief administrative office conducted a similar study in 1986. Many of the temporary housing alternatives considered then would have violated state laws, she said.

‘Geometric Growth’

But the “geometric growth” of jail population in the past three years dictates another look at temporary jail facilities, Golding said. As of Tuesday, county jails held 4,294 inmates, or 235% of their rated capacity, and Golding noted that a county forecast estimates that the number of inmates in San Diego jails will reach 15,950 by the turn of the century.

The proposal debated Tuesday is part of a broader, combined push by the city of San Diego and the county to change the state code regulating jail conditions and facilities. But Golding said it may be easier to secure a waiver for temporary jail housing than to actually change the laws, given Sacramento’s strong resistance to wholesale changes in the rules governing permanent jails.

If county officials determine that some of the alternative jail housing methods to be feasible, the board may ask the state to temporarily waive regulations that might prohibit their use, Golding said.

“We are building jails with single bunks to begin with (because of the state code) when we know we will need to triple- and quadruple- bunk anyway,” she said. “Some of these (rules) have already been outpaced by reality.”

Court Rulings an Obstacle

Another obstacle in the way of cheap, quick solutions to jail crowding are court rulings declaring some jail facilities unconstitutional because they inflict cruel and unusual punishment on their occupants. One such ruling has already sunk a proposal to house inmates aboard mothballed Navy ships, according to Supervisor John MacDonald.

Sheriff’s officials have already toured an Orange County facility and other inmate tent camps in their search for a way out of the jail crowding crisis, said sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Jim Cooke.

At least one company has contacted the department in an effort to sell its corrugated steel containers as inmate housing, Cooke said.

“You couldn’t just erect a shipping container without windows or ventilation and expect people to live in it,” Cooke said.

Cooke and Golding both noted that temporary jail facilities are most practical for low-security inmates. But, because the jails cannot accommodate most of those arrested on misdemeanor charges, felons who require tighter security account for much of the increase in inmate population, Cooke said.

“The bottom line is they just need to build more high-security jails,” he said.

Increased Personnel Costs

Temporary jail housing can increase personnel costs because more deputies are required to oversee such facilities, according to Cooke. As evidence, he pointed to increased manpower requirements at the men’s wing of the County Jail at Las Colinas, the county’s only temporary detention facility.

In searching for inexpensive alternatives to conventional jails, Golding said she was inspired by the example of a 23-bed Leesburg County, Va., jail reportedly built in less than two weeks for less than $100,000. An Associated Press story describes the building, built with shipping containers, as resembling a schoolhouse.

But another temporary jail facility built several years ago in Los Angeles “looked pretty oppressive,” according to David Janssen, San Diego County’s assistant chief administrative officer.

“Nobody prefers a concentration camp-type solution,” Janssen said.