Tally of Cons Paroled to County Up 20% in Year

The number of murderers, sex offenders, drug dealers and convicted felons paroled to San Diego County increased 20% last year, according to statistics released this week by the state Department of Corrections.

In all, 2,224 inmates were released last year from state prisons to San Diego County, which ranks second behind Los Angeles County as a destination for those who have served in state prison, statistics show.

That is 20% more than the 1,856 inmates released to the county in 1988 and nearly twice the number of parolees sent to the San Diego area just five years ago, according to the figures compiled by the department at the request of The Times.

The surge of parolees in San Diego County is part of a statewide trend. Experts say it is the inevitable consequence of the 1977 mandatory prison laws that have sent an unprecedented tide of criminals to prison.

“A lot of us would lock them up for a long time, forever,” said Linda Miller, spokeswoman for the San Diego district attorney’s office. “But, what are you going to do? The more people you put in, it certainly makes sense that someday their sentences are going to be up and they are going to come back.

“Which is not to say we’re happy to have convicted criminals back in our midst,” she said. “It is scary. Most of us know that people go into prison, and they come out much more hardened and sophisticated than when they go in.”

The mandatory sentencing laws took the decisions about prison terms away from judges and set the terms for automatic incarceration for those convicted of serious crimes, such as murder, rape, kidnaping, burglary and dealing drugs.

The champion for this get-tough approach has been Gov. George Deukmejian, who as a legislator wrote the “use a gun, go to jail” statutes as well as the state’s death penalty law.

The result has been a rising tide of criminals sent off to state prisons, which held a record 87,863 inmates as of Jan. 28, say corrections officials. To keep pace with the booming population, the state has built seven major prison additions and seven new prisons, including the Richard J. Donovan prison on Otay Mesa.

But the same laws also call for an inmate to be automatically paroled to his home county, a feature that is now triggering a rising tide of parolees back to the streets. Inmates are paroled to the county, where they have established legal residence.

Although most of these automatic paroles are given scant public attention, two highly publicized cases recently created such a furor that state corrections officials had to abort their routine of returning the criminals to their hometowns.

The 1987 release of Lawrence Singleton, convicted of raping a San Diego girl and then hacking off her arms, caused such a backlash in San Diego County and throughout the state that he had to be paroled to a trailer on state grounds at the San Quentin prison for a year. He was finally released unconditionally on April 25, 1988.

More recently, Orange County residents and other Californians protested the release of Charles David Rothenberg, who was convicted of attempted murder, arson and other crimes for setting his then 6-year-old son on fire in a Buena Park hotel room on March 3, 1983. The protests were led by Rothenberg’s son, David, who told reporters he never wanted to see his father.

Rothenberg was subsequently released to Northern California, some believe. Corrections officials on Tuesday declined to discuss his whereabouts, but say he is under 24-hour electronic and physical surveillance.

Such cases, however, are rare and parolees are routinely sent back to the county of legal residence when their time is up. Department studies show that about half of those former inmates wind up back in jail within two years, either for violating parole conditions or committing another crime.

“The result of the Deukmejian get-tough-on-crime approach is now coming home to roost; it’s now coming back to haunt us,” said John Hagar, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. Hagar has represented inmates in lawsuits against the Department of Corrections.

“These same prosecutors told the public if we put people away for longer sentences in our clean, modern safe prisons that you--the public--will be safe,” Hagar said, referring to the high recidivism of parolees. “And that wasn’t true, because to put people away for longer periods of time in overcrowded institutions . . . made those people worse.”

Tuesday’s statistics show that, statewide, the number of parolees has increased dramatically in the last five years. There were 18,861 criminals paroled in California in 1984, contrasted with 37,879 in 1989--a 101% increase. The increase between 1988 and 1989 was 15%.

Los Angeles County received 14,593 parolees last year, a 10% increase over 1988. As the state’s most populous county, it receives the largest number of parolees, corrections officials say.

Meanwhile, the number of inmates paroled to San Diego County has increased 97% during the past five years, from 1,129 in 1984 to 2,224 in 1989. The increase in parolees in the last year, at 20%, was slightly higher than the state average.

The increase was caused by a surge of paroled drug dealers and drug users, the statistics show. There were 460 drug-related inmates sent to San Diego county in 1989, contrasted with 349 in 1988--an increase of 32%.

Other one-year increases, although slighter, include people convicted of first- and second-degree burglary (3%) and sex offenders, including rapists (17%).

San Diego County and “all other county courts are just committing more and more people to prison, and that’s what’s driving the increasing inmate population and their release,” said Robert Bowman, regional parole administrator. Bowman’s office oversees parole offices in Orange, San Diego, Riverside, San Bernardino, Imperial and portions of Los Angeles counties.

Counting the 1989 releases, there are about 18,000 prison parolees living in the 5 1/2-county area, with each parole officer responsible for an average of 55 inmates, said Bowman.

San Diego County parolees are required to report to one of five offices. Two are downtown on India Street and two others are in El Cajon on North Magnolia Avenue. The fifth is a new office in Vista on Oceanside Boulevard.

Bowman said the high-risk parolees are required to contact their parole officer with a personal visit or by telephone at least four times a month. In many cases, parolees are sent back to prison because routine urine tests show they have been using drugs, which is a violation of their parole guidelines.

INCREASE IN STATE PRISON PAROLEES RELEASED TO SAN DIEGO COUNTY

Percentage Offenses 1988 1989 Increase Murder 8 4 -50% Manslaughter 25 29 + 13% Robbery 184 195 + 7% Assault 121 134 + 10% Rape 22 24 + 9% Other sex offenses 74 88 + 19% Kidnaping 4 10 +150% Burglary 428 442 + 3% Grand theft 82 101 + 23% Other property crimes 467 614 + 31% Drug-related charges 349 460 + 32% Drunken driving 11 12 + 9% Arson 4 10 +150% Weapons possession 48 60 + 25% Other 27 30 + 11% No description given 2 11 +450% Total 1,856 2,224 + 20%

Source: California Department of Corrections.