LOCAL ELECTIONS COUNTY PROPOSITIONS : Vote May Remold Sheriff’s Office : Law Enforcement: Two propositions will decide whether to create a civilian review board and a corrections department to run the jails.

Besides choosing a successor to Sheriff John Duffy, voters also will have two other ways in Tuesday’s election to influence the way the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department will operate in the future--Propositions A and B.

Proposition A is a proposed amendment to the County Charter that would establish a civilian review board to oversee the Sheriff’s Department and the Probation Department, and, in particular, to investigate citizen complaints of brutality, false arrest, illegal searches, criminal misconduct, improper shootings and other problems.

Proposition B, if approved, gives county supervisors the option of creating a county Board of Corrections, appointing a corrections director and staffing the six county jails with civilian corrections officers rather than sworn deputies.

The review board created under Proposition A is supported by both sheriff’s candidates, the county Board of Supervisors and the former county Grand Jury foreman. Composed of 9 to 15 members, the review board would be nominated by the county’s chief administrative officer and appointed by supervisors.

The review board would have the power, as does the grand jury, to subpoena witnesses and compel testimony. The San Diego Police Department has a voter-approved civilian board, but without subpoena power. Civil rights groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union, say the police review board should be strengthened to be more like the proposed county board.

Sheriff Duffy opposes the review board, criticizing it as a group of political appointees who will be forced to do the board’s bidding. Duffy said the Grand Jury can do a better job and save the county about $350,000 it will cost to set up the new board.

Sheriff’s candidate Jack Drown, an assistant sheriff, initially agreed with Duffy about the Grand Jury but supports the review board now that it is on the ballot. His opponent, Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Roache, supported the review board from the start.

Both men helped write the rebuttal to Duffy’s argument against Proposition A.

Supporters of the review board say it would go a long way toward restoring public confidence in the Sheriff’s Department, which has been hit with several high-profile problems this year, including a $1.1-million jury judgment for a retired Navy chaplain who said he was beaten by sheriff’s deputies, and the killing by a deputy of an unarmed man in Vista.

Proposition B, its backers say, would save the county $13 million to $22 million by staffing the jails with civilians. The Department of Corrections is needed, proponents say, to keep inmates from being abused, as many were at the El Cajon jail in 1987 and 1988, and to keep the Sheriff’s Department from overspending its jail budget.

A varied group of law enforcement officials, from the president of the San Diego Police Officers Assn. to the executive director of the San Diego Crime Commission to the assistant sheriff for jails, opposes the Department of Corrections.

So do Drown and Roache, who say a separate department will do nothing to ease jail crowding or help gain money for new jail space.

In the argument against Proposition B he co-authored, Duffy said county supervisors simply want further control over the Sheriff’s Department but are not interested in allocating more money for the problems that exist.