ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Time Is Now for Jail Expansion

An appellate court has removed a major legal barrier to the $41.5-million expansion of Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange--a desperately needed project in Orange County. Expanding Theo Lacy, a medium/minimum security facility, is the county’s most practical response yet to severe overcrowding at the main jail in Santa Ana. Five years ago, the problem was so dire that a judge held the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Brad Gates in contempt for ignoring his 7-year-old order to resolve jail overcrowding; it is now worse than ever. More than 50,000 suspected offenders have been released early because there were not enough jail spaces. The expansion would more than double Theo Lacy’s capacity to 1,326.

The resolution came in a ruling on a case brought by the City of Orange and a city shopping center and office complex across the street from the jail. The 4th District Court of Appeal agreed that the county’s environmental impact report was inadequate, but the court also ordered work on the jail to resume while the report is redone, citing the urgent need for more cells. If need be, structures could later be torn down or put to other uses, the court said.

Presiding Justice Thomas F. Crosby Jr., writing for a three-judge panel, said it eloquently: “Delay continues to cause a severe impact on the environment of local prisoners . . . so severe that the main jail has been subjected to monitoring by a federal district judge in recent years. Real human indignity and suffering is in the offing--or has already arrived--as the local correctional system teeters toward collapse.”

Orange Mayor Don E. Smith has indicated that the city is ready to settle the lawsuit, but “just wants to be protected.” Of course, new cells are only a partial answer to the problem of crime. There must be additional efforts, for example, to treat drug abusers. But in the meantime, additional jail space is too badly needed to be held up even a day.