Court Costs May Offset Jailing Fee Revenue : Law enforcement: A study shows that a cite-and-release policy increases the number of suspects who fail to appear before a judge.

A new study suggests that jail booking fees imposed by Ventura County as a partial solution to its strained budget may result in court expenses that would absorb much of the $1 million the county hopes to raise with the new levies.

The unexpected costs could occur if defiant city police departments follow Oxnard’s lead and begin to ticket and release thousands of people arrested for minor crimes each year, rather than pay a $120-per-person fee to book them at the County Jail, the study suggests.

The study, conducted by the largest municipal court district in Orange County, found that crime suspects in a cite-and-release program there failed to appear in court at a rate 18 times higher than those booked into jail and screened by the court before release on their own recognizance. Only 1.7% of those screened failed to appear while 30.5% who were ticketed missed court dates.

The cost of finding the no-shows and arresting them a second time is at least $300 a person, Orange County court officials said.

And, if the Orange County non-appearance rate holds true in Ventura County, the cost to pursue 2,745 recalcitrant misdemeanor suspects could exceed $800,000 a year. The county booking fee will not be charged until Jan. 1, but it will apply retroactively to July 1.

Ventura County court administrators say they have not tracked appearance rates in local municipal courts. But Medrick Amar--a bail investigator for the Ventura County courts, whose office handles all new criminal cases--estimates that up to 40% of the suspects released by local police through existing, small-scale ticketing programs fail to show up for court. That compares with an overall non-appearance rate of perhaps 10%, he said.

“A lot of times on a citation they don’t take it that seriously or they forget about it,” Amar said.

Richard Wittenberg, county chief administrative officer, said his office will analyze the Orange County data to see how it applies in Ventura County.

The Orange County study only fuels a controversy over booking fees that for weeks has pitted Ventura County against the 10 cities within it.

The dispute also has raised questions about whether the response of city police agencies to the fees might make Ventura County, which the FBI identifies as the safest urban county in the West, a more dangerous place to live.

In approving booking fees Sept. 11, county supervisors said they had little choice because state cuts left their budget $5.8 million short. They said they had to pass along that burden to the cities, as allowed by the Legislature for the first time this year. The cities, supervisors noted, are generally in much better financial shape than the county and can pay the fees with budget reserves.

But city officials are furious that the supervisors adopted the fees without exploring other solutions with them. And some city police chiefs have warned that the fees could force them to quickly release suspected criminals who should be in jail.

Oxnard already has begun a large quick-release program to avoid the fees, and Ventura is strongly considering the same thing, police chiefs in those cities said last week.

Judges and county prosecutors say such programs will mean more work for them and for the Sheriff’s Department, whose job it is to find defendants who do not show up in court.

“We think there will be a lot of failures to appear,” Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury said.

Likewise, Municipal Court Presiding Judge Lee E. Cooper Jr. said experience tells him that a substantial majority of those cited and released will not appear for arraignment. “Particularly those who are drug-involved have a very high failure-to-appear rate,” Cooper said.

Madge L. Schaefer, chairwoman of the Board of Supervisors, said she does not believe statistics, such as Orange County’s, that indicate no-show defendants may become a costly county problem.

Nor does she think that local police will release people who are a danger to society to save on booking fees. “They are professionals, and these are hollow threats,” she said.

Schaefer also predicted that large-scale, quick-release programs, even if adopted by police officials, would be canceled by local city councils concerned about public safety.

Under most current police programs in Ventura County, crime suspects are ticketed and released only for minor misdemeanors such as disturbing the peace or shoplifting.

But state law allows a broader application that can include nearly all misdemeanors, including drug and alcohol intoxication, theft and some assaults.

That broad brush has been applied in Oxnard for two weeks, said Police Chief Robert Owens, because his department’s $15.6-million annual budget cannot absorb $480,000 he claims it would cost to book 4,000 misdemeanor suspects into County Jail during the next year.

“My instructions to our officers are: If you can release, do so. That’s if a person does not present an immediate threat to public safety.”

The problem with his new policy, Owens said, is that most of the suspects released quickly will have been arrested for drug intoxication. Though held until sober, many who use cocaine heavily become depressed and paranoid as they come off their highs and tend to be dangerous, he said.

In the past, booking drug suspects into the County Jail “has been a form of detoxification,” Owens said. “These persons can opt for bail, but a lot of them don’t.”

Law-enforcement studies show that about a third of those arrested for drug intoxication support their drug use with burglaries and thefts, the police chief said, and their quick release will only expose Oxnard to more crimes.

Owens said several hundred people whom he would consider perpetual threats to the community will receive early release in Oxnard each year under the new program.

He is preparing a report on his quick-release program for review by the Oxnard City Council, which will have final say over whether it stays in effect, Owens said.

The reaction to booking fees at Ventura County’s other four city police agencies--in Simi Valley, Ventura, Port Hueneme and Santa Paula--has ranged from outrage in Ventura to acceptance in Port Hueneme, which already releases within hours 80% of the suspects it arrests.

Ventura Police Chief Richard F. Thomas said his department may be forced into same-day releases of thousands of suspects because booking them into County Jail would cost his city up to $450,000 a year. The department’s annual budget is about $12 million, he said.

Ventura police expect to arrest about 3,750 people this year who usually would be booked into jail but might now be released on their promise to appear in court, he said.

“For the first time since I’ve been a cop, money is going to drive what we do with criminals,” an angry Thomas said.

In Santa Paula, police officials are studying an expanded cite-and-release program as an option to save from $70,000 to $120,000 a year out of a $2-million budget. But no decision has been made.

In Simi Valley and Port Hueneme, police chiefs said the booking fees would have less impact. Those two cities already cite and release many suspects because of their distance from the County Jail. Transporting prisoners to that jail, or to a satellite county facility in Thousand Oaks, takes officers away from their primary patrol duties.

Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Ojai and Thousand Oaks all contract with the county Sheriff’s Department for police protection. There has been no indication that the councils in those five cities will direct the sheriff to book fewer misdemeanor suspects to save on fees.

Some local officials say the booking fees may be good even if they prompt police to book fewer suspects into County Jail, which usually houses more than 1,000 prisoners but is designed for 450.

“We have terrible overcrowding in the jail, so this may relieve that problem,” Public Defender Kenneth I. Clayman said. Most of those who would be released are charged with misdemeanors and would be out of jail within 24 hours anyway, he said, on bail or on their own recognizance.

Indeed, most area police officials agreed that it makes sense for them to book many minor criminals at their own stations, issue them citations and release them.

Tiny Port Hueneme has demonstrated that an active quick-release program can work, Chief Robert A. Anderson said.

Port Hueneme sends only about 300 of the 1,500 suspects it books each year to the County Jail, Anderson said. Instead, suspects undergo a full booking--including mug shots, fingerprints and an interview--at the city police station, he said. Those who are accused of being intoxicated on drugs or alcohol are locked into holding cells for up to six hours, Anderson said.

Anderson said misdemeanor suspects from his city have not created a problem by failing to show up for arraignments.

Suspects may appear for court at a higher rate in Port Hueneme than in large cities or counties because booking officers are able to check addresses quickly and will usually know if alleged places of employment ring true, he said.

Like all local police agencies, Port Hueneme also has the ability to check a computer for local, state and federal warrants against a suspect.

What Port Hueneme does not have, but courts do, is the ability to check criminal records in detail and to determine if suspects have a history of failing to appear in court.

Oxnard’s expanded cite-and-release program also includes a full booking, Owens said. So does the existing one in Santa Paula, said Cmdr. Bob Gonzales. Simi Valley does not book, Simi Police Chief Lindsey P. Miller said, because it is cheaper to pay the county fees.

Local police book-and-release programs are similar to the one in Orange County.

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department, under a federal court order to avoid crowding at its central jail, quickly books and releases about 1,000 misdemeanor suspects a month, court executive officer Robert Kuhel said.

From January through August of this year, an average of 305 of the 1,000 misdemeanants released each month, or 30.5%, missed their arraignments, Kuhel said. By contrast, only 1.7% of the 4,960 “low-grade felons” released on their own recognizance after being court-screened failed to appear, he said.

Suspects show up much more frequently after a court screening because they are convinced that authorities have the information to track them easily, Kuhel said.

Failures to appear not only increase his court’s workload and costs but carry an extra burden because they eventually lead to more jail crowding, Kuhel said.

“If a petty theft suspect started off with a 10-day sentence, that would at least double with a failure to appear,” Kuhel said.

From a law enforcement standpoint, Orange County’s book-and-release program is no more successful, Assistant Sheriff Jerry Krans said.

“We can show through studies a number of people who have committed new crimes when they should have been in jail,” Krans said. “It undermines the whole system if they know they can go out and commit crimes, and they’re not going to spend any time in jail.”