THE TIMES ORANGE COUNTY POLL : Voters Oppose Measure to Restrict Jails to Santa Ana

Voters throughout Orange County strongly oppose a June ballot measure that would restrict all future county jail construction to Santa Ana, favoring instead the idea of putting the jail in the Riverside County desert, according to The Times Orange County Poll.

Measure A, or the Centralized Jail Initiative, was opposed by 58% of 600 voters surveyed. Only 33% of voters said they would support the measure, while 9% were undecided.

Among likely voters, the measure fares no better: 60% said they oppose Measure A, with 33% again pledging their support.

The measure was put on the June 5 ballot by residents of Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda who oppose the county’s plan to build a 6,000-inmate jail in nearby Gypsum Canyon. The group gathered more than 100,000 signatures in a 1988 initiative drive to qualify the measure for the ballot.

But the group, called Taxpayers for a Centralized Jail, has apparently failed in its attempt to find broad-based support for the measure. A majority of both Democrats and Republicans expressed an apparent distaste for the proposal, as did voters in all parts of the county--not just in Santa Ana, where city officials have blasted the measure as being tinged with racism because it would dump all future jails in the largely Latino community.

Lucinda Lowry of El Toro, a participant in the Times poll, said she preferred to see a jail built in a undeveloped section of Riverside County, reasoning that it would be unjust to drop a new jail into the established neighborhoods of Santa Ana.

“I don’t think it would be fair to signal out any particular city in the county,” she said. “If they chose a remote area, then people who would move out there after the jail was built would know it was there.”

The telephone survey of 600 registered voters was conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates May 21 through 23. The margin of error for a sample of this size is plus 4% or minus 4%.

Measure A seeks to locate all future county jails in Santa Ana without naming the city. It asks if all future jail sites within Orange County should be built in the “county seat” and if expansion of jail facilities existing outside the county seat should be stopped.

While a majority of poll respondents opposed restricting jails to Santa Ana, they agreed with near-unanimity that current jail and court facilities are not sufficient. Ninety-two percent said that expanding county justice facilities is somewhat important or very important, while just 4% said it was not important. Here, too, Democrats and Republicans were nearly identical in their responses.

But the question that has plagued county supervisors for more than a decade is where a new jail should be built. Each time they have focused on a site, there has been an outcry from nearby residents and threatened or real litigation.

Voters who responded to the poll displayed the same “Not in My Back Yard” syndrome: 69% said they prefer the idea of putting the jail in the remote Riverside County desert, while just 12% said their first choice would be Gypsum Canyon. Santa Ana was the preferred jail location of just 8% of those surveyed.

“It suggests we’re actually a small county,” Baldassare said, with voters rejecting locations in any part of the county, not just their own. “Voters seem to have reached a consensus on wanting (a jail) in the desert.”

Supervisor Don R. Roth has promoted the idea of building a jail in the desert. Staffs from Orange and Riverside counties are studying the proposals, but no details such as a site have been worked out yet.

Poll participant Dorothy Miller of Anaheim favored putting the jail in Santa Ana, suggesting that transporting prisoners out to the desert would open the window for a wider array of security problems.

“Since we have the possible expansion space right now in Santa Ana, it seems the logical thing to do,” she said.

Baldassare speculated that Roth’s proposal to build a county or regional jail in the Riverside County desert may have hurt Measure A. With that apparently popular idea getting so much attention, people might think it unwise to limit jails to Santa Ana, he said.

“Discussion of the possibility of a jail site outside Orange County does hurt the initiative,” Baldassare said. “It suggests to people, why should they limit their options . . . when there’s that possibility.”

Measure A proponents claim that their proposal would not preclude the county from joining other counties in building a regional facility in the desert. But Measure A opponents have disputed that claim, leaving the issue somewhat murky.

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Orange County Poll was conducted by Mark Baldassare and Associates. The telephone survey of 600 registered voters was conducted over three nights, ending Wednesday, using a random sample of listed and unlisted telephone numbers in Orange County. The margin of error for the entire sample is plus-or-minus 4%. That means it is 95% certain that the results are within 4 percentage points of what they would be if all registered voters in Orange County were interviewed. For the subsample of 328 Republicans, the margin of error is 6 points. And for the 212 Democrats, it is 7 points.

THE TIMES O.C. POLL O.C. Jails Measure A on the June ballot for all future Orange County jails to be located in the county seat, which is Santa Ana, and calls for stopping the expansion of existing jail sites outside the county seat of Santa Ana. If the election were held today, would you vote yes or no on measure A?

Yes: 33%

No: 58%

Don’t Know: 9 In your opinion, how important is the need for expanding the current Orange County jail and court facilities?

Not important: 4%

Somewhat important: 49%

Very important: 43%

Don’t know: 4% Where would you most prefer to have a new Orange County jail facility built--in Santa Ana, in Gypsum Canyon in the Anaheim Hills, or in a remote desert area of Riverside County?

Santa Ana: 8%

Gypsum Canyon: 12%

Riverside: 69%

Somewhere else: 2%

Don’t Know: 9% Note: The Times Orange County Poll of 600 registered voters was conducted May 21-23 using a random sample of telephone numbers. The margin of error for a sample of this size is + 4% or -4%.

Source: Times Orange County Poll

Times staff writer Eric Bailey contributed to this story.