Juvenile Hall Funds May Be Sought : Corrections: County supervisors will be asked to apply for $3.6 million in state bond money to build a new facility to remedy overcrowding.

When corrections officials run out of beds at Ventura County’s juvenile hall, they haul out mattresses and the overflow of youthful inmates beds down on the floor.

Despite steps taken last spring to relieve overcrowding, the number of juveniles occasionally exceeds the maximum capacity of 84. It ranged from 91 to 96 during the four days before Thanksgiving.

To ease the overcrowding, corrections officials will ask the Board of Supervisors today to apply for $3.6 million in state bond money to help pay for a new, 42-bed juvenile facility.

The building, to be built in three phases over nine years, would cost $6 million. The county’s share would be $2.3 million. No local funds have been budgeted yet, and county officials already have serious budget problems.

Overcrowding has been so serious at the Clifton Tatum Center in Ventura that in April the California Youth Authority warned local officials to relieve the problem or risk losing certification.

“We’ve had more overcrowding in the last two years than we’ve ever had,” said David M. Conahey, division manager at the juvenile hall. The county’s population is growing, and studies show that 125 beds will be needed by the year 2000 for juvenile offenders.

The hall, built in stages from 1955 to 1967, is a maximum-security facility to which youths are transported after being arrested. Some are held there pending disposal of their cases and others as part of their sentences or for probation violations.

“This is a county jail for kids,” Conahey said. Boys and girls are assigned one to a cell that has only a window and a cot. They eat in a day room and attend classes in the building. The average stay is nine days.

When the jail population exceeds 84, corrections officials assign two youths to a cell, with one sleeping on a mattress on the floor.

The warning from state authorities in April came after the jail was filled beyond capacity for 26 days from Jan. 19 through Feb. 28. The inmate population exceeded 100 on five days; once it was 109.

Moreover, youths were sleeping on mattresses only three inches thick although requirements call for bedding to be 12 inches off the floor.

Conahey said facility officials instituted several measures to relieve the situation. First, they ordered 30 custom-made mattresses 12 inches thick to meet state requirements.

They also adopted a policy allowing inmates to be released five days early if there is overcrowding. During such times they would also release youths brought in on misdemeanor offenses, if necessary.

Those policies and a drop in inmates over the summer and fall have brought the juvenile hall into compliance with state requirements. Noncompliance results only when the inmate population exceeds capacity on 15 days out of 30.

But the number on Monday was 83, and whenever it creeps past 84 Conahey worries.

“There are more fights, and a higher level of tension,” he said. “You can feel it.”

The new facility would provide lower security and would house youths who don’t need the high security at the juvenile hall, such as those who have violated probation or are awaiting transfer to residential treatment programs.

The first phase would include bed space for 20 youths and would open by July, 1994. The entire project would not be finished until 1999.

The new facility would be financed primarily from money raised through a state bond measure approved by voters in 1988. Proposition 86 provides money to repair and build juvenile halls.

The supervisors will also be asked today to apply for $863,000 of the state money to make repairs at the juvenile hall and the adjacent juvenile work release center. The money would be spent on a new roof, a new fire alarm system, fire sprinklers, and other plumbing and electrical work.

Supervisors will probably apply for the state funds to build the proposed facility, but whether the county is ready to commit local funds is still in question, said Supervisor Maggie Erickson, who served on a committee to study the facility.

“I have serious concerns about how we would be able to afford it,” she said. Earlier talks about a new facility involved a less costly, scaled-down version, she said.

“We certainly are in need of expanded facilities,” she said. “This is the first step toward that, but there are lots of places in between to keep reconsidering.”