No Easy Escape From Jail Dilemma : Crowding: Supervisors agree on the need to find room for more prisoners, but they disagree on how or whether to pay for a new jail.

All five Ventura County supervisors agree that the county desperately needs more space for its burgeoning jail population but are divided on how much money should be spent to house prisoners.

As plans for a new jail near completion and a deadline for state funding approaches, three admit they haven’t figured out the best way to pay for the jail, one has not taken a position and one says it shouldn’t be built at all.

The supervisors are scheduled on Tuesday to choose a site and review plans for the facility’s first 752-bed section.

Supervisor Maggie Erickson said the county must stay within its $41-million budget for a new jail, which includes a $31-million grant from the state Department of Corrections and $10 million in county money.

But Supervisor Madge L. Schaefer said that won’t be nearly enough. The county will have to “bite the bullet” and come up with additional money called for in a jail proposal submitted to the state, she said. That proposal says it will cost from $57 million to $85 million for a 100-acre site and construction of the first section of a jail, which ultimately could be expanded to 2,300 beds at a total cost of $172 million to $210 million.

Supervisor Jim Dougherty has expressed concern that the board will have to cut money from social programs to pay for a new jail. But he also favors putting certain inmates into less expensive alternatives to jail, such as work furlough, work release and drug treatment programs.

Supervisor Susan Lacey said she has not decided how best to solve the county’s prisoner population problems.

And Supervisor John Flynn said building a jail is too expensive. Instead, he proposes building additions to existing jail facilities to create about 700 new beds for inmates at a cost of about $29.4 million.

In February, a majority of those surveyed in a Los Angeles Times Poll said they would oppose building a jail if the county’s sales tax has to be raised by half a cent to finance it. Of those polled, 22% supported building a jail, while 50% opposed it, 25% said they had not heard enough and 3% said they were unsure.

No such tax exists now, but last winter the Legislature passed a bill that would allow the supervisors to ask voters to approve a tax increase to help pay for a new jail.

The main jail, at the Ventura County Government Center in Ventura, holds 2 1/2 times as many inmates as it was designed for. The population there averaged 1,012 inmates per day in May.

Two inmates are crammed into nearly every single-person cell, sharing space in a 7-by-12-foot concrete box. This forces additional inmates to sleep in bunk beds in the day rooms of most medium-security cellblocks, as many as 12 men sharing a single toilet and sink in each one. But the Ventura County Jail seems clean, quiet and manageable, in comparison to the severely overcrowded main Los Angeles County Jail. In fact, Ventura County is one of only four counties in California not under court order to reduce its jail population.

ACLU officials who have toured the jail say that the county has avoided a court order because its administrators work to meet industry standards for cleanliness, food, clothing, exercise and visiting time.

The county has weathered three lawsuits that maintained the main jail was overcrowded--the last one in 1986--said Assistant Sheriff Richard Bryce, who oversees jail facilities. Each time, the judges in those suits toured the main jail and ruled in the county’s favor, Bryce said.

Bryce predicted, however, that conditions will worsen as more people move to the county and the courts put more inmates into the facility.

“If we don’t build a jail, I imagine eventually we’ll reach that straw that breaks the camel’s back,” Bryce said. “We’re doing everything we can to keep us out of court.”

“I’ll tell you what overcrowding does to a facility: It strains everything,” said Sgt. Gary Cook, a jail administrator. “It strains the staff. It strains the inmates. It strains the physical plant itself.”

Schaefer, Erickson and Sheriff John Gillespie have said they prefer a 157-acre site on Todd Road between Santa Paula and Ventura that is now a lemon orchard. The size of the lot allows for expansion, and it is convenient to the courthouse and existing jail, they said.

On Tuesday, the supervisors are expected to approve a site and begin deciding whether they want the jail to be a sprawling, one-story complex or a more compact, six-story structure. Schaefer said the county should be able to meet an early March deadline to begin construction. The state could withdraw the $31-million grant if construction has not begun by then. But she said the supervisors have many details and differences to work out before ground can be broken.

“The money we have is $41 million,” Erickson said. “That’s money we have in hand. If we can’t build it for that at the moment, we’re in real trouble.”

But Schaefer said the county is “just going to have to come up with the money” for the full cost of the first section.

“I told Maggie that I am truly escaping just in the nick of time,” said Schaefer, whose term expires in January. “That’s a big bullet we’re going to have to bite and we’re going to have to cut programs. . . . We’d be fine if it was just the county jail, but unfortunately we have other capital needs that are staggering and just as essential.”

Schaefer said Ventura County’s public buildings need $200 million worth of improvements or replacement--including the jail, a new roof for the government center, a new mental health facility, renovations to Juvenile Hall and some way to expand the cramped courtrooms.

Schaefer’s successor, Maria VanderKolk said she would like to be able to review all the information on the jail proposals before taking a position, but she added that she sees merit in Flynn’s proposal.

Flynn said the county could spend only $29.4 million and provide 700 beds for inmates by building additions to the existing jail, the Rose Valley work camp, the Sheriff’s Honor Farm in Ojai and the East Valley Branch Jail in Simi Valley.

The other supervisors’ more costly plan to build a new main facility “is simply a politically unacceptable answer,” Flynn said. “I don’t think the people will like it at all. I’ve been trying to tell my colleagues that and they won’t listen.”

Flynn said Ventura County residents want criminals locked up but also favor offering convicts alternatives to jail. And according to officials in the sheriff’s department, most of the existing jail facilities can accommodate more inmates.

Although the Sheriff’s Honor Farm in Ojai currently houses 240 inmates--nearly twice its capacity of 124--there are vacancies in the other programs.

The military-style Rose Valley work camp in the Los Padres National Forest has room for about 60 more inmates. The work furlough program, which lets inmates work their regular jobs during the day before returning to locked barracks at the old Camarillo Airport at night, has from 80 to 90 openings.

The work release program, which lets convicts live at home while reporting to county highway maintenance jobs during the day, can accept an unlimited number of inmates, Bryce said. The program actually raises money for the county by levying a fine of $12 a day against each convict and $18 a day per inmate against outside contractors who hire them.

But Bryce said most of the inmates in the main jail are not qualified for any of the alternative programs. Those still in the main facility who may qualify for Rose Valley don’t want to subject themselves to the boot camp-like atmosphere, he said. Although inmates go there only voluntarily, Bryce said he’d like to show Ventura County’s judges that the camp is an option for sentencing.

“We just feel like some of the people that are being put on some of these alternative programs in some cases might be better served and better dealt with in the Rose Valley program,” Bryce said.

Some inmates who might be eligible for work furlough remain in jail because they don’t have jobs in the outside world to which they could be furloughed, he said.

And nonviolent convicts who might qualify for work furlough or work release are mostly repeat offenders who would abuse the privileges those programs offer and commit crimes when they weren’t locked up, Bryce said.

“If you use them as a means of dealing with jail overcrowding, you’re kidding yourself. You’re just putting a Band-Aid on the problem,” Bryce said.