ORANGE COUNTY VOICES / KEITH O. BOYUM : We Need a Coherent Approach to Solve the Jail Problem

In ancient Greek mythology, sailors traversing the Straits of Messina between Sicily and Italy had to avoid terrible monsters on either side. Scylla threatened to devour sailors who strayed too near her, and on the other side was Charybdis, a dreadful whirlpool that sucked in and spewed out seawater (and any hapless sailors). Pity the sailor whose route took him through there!

It seems that in our times, a similar pity might be offered Sheriff Brad Gates. On one side, he must avoid the wrath of Municipal Judge Richard W. Stanford Jr. Stanford has ordered the sheriff to cease granting early releases to selected county jail inmates. If the sheriff fails to satisfy Stanford’s requirements by Nov.1 (or if he loses his appeal to set aside the order), he will face $17,000 in fines and 30 days in jail.

But no less to be avoided is a long-standing order from a U.S. District judge. To assure inmates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of due process of law, that judge wants overcrowding avoided in Orange County jails. And that, in fact, is why Gates has granted the early releases.

Of course, ensuring inmates’ their constitutional rights is his sworn duty, whether or not a judge commands it. But the sheriff also knows that strong sanctions to enforce orders are at least as available to federal as they are to state judges.

What course can the sheriff chart?

The obvious answers would seem to be increases in processing efficiency, for the short run, and in system (especially jail) capacity in the longer run. Unfortunately, easy answers can prove unsatisfying upon deeper reflection.

In the first place, effecting increases in efficiency is not usually free. One can suggest video and/or weekend arraignments, perhaps keeping courts open longer, and other similar means of using existing physical facilities more. But even if greater efficiency might help the sheriff navigate between those opposing juridical hazards, problems such as paying for the extra employee time arise.

Further, who wants to work at midnight? Degrading the attractiveness of judicial and allied jobs would create a longer-range problem. And, in fact, we might want other reassurances. For if expense, inefficiency and waste are the Scylla for judicial administrators, then a Charybdis lurks in the form of giving the accused rough justice.

As for supplying increases in jail capacity, the political problems are well-known. The issue of where to locate jails combines with the problem of finding the money to build and operate the facilities. But there is in fact another strait to be navigated, and Gates ought not to be the only worried sailor.

I do not know whether Stanford believes that incarcerating wrongdoers can prevent deviant behavior. But if he does, he shares that belief with many in our community and with the state Legislature.

Likewise, if Gates thinks that sentences generally ought to be served in a lockup rather than on probation or in supervised electronic confinement, he would reflect his community in that belief. In fact, American incarceration rates have been steadily climbing over at least the last two decades.

From 1976 to ’86 in Orange County, the population grew by 24%, according to a recent UC Irvine study, but the incarceration rate grew by 97%. The county obviously shares in the American get-tough-on-crime mood.

But at the same time, Orange County is notoriously reluctant to raise taxes, even to support that get-tough mood. Voters recently rejected Measure J, which would have raised taxes to provide for jail construction.

Equally interesting are the changes that Orange County has made in the past 15 years or so as to how it allocates funds in its criminal-justice budget. We have chosen to spend larger fractions of a larger criminal-justice budget on jails, on the Sheriff’s Department, and on the courts--while spending remarkably less in percentage terms on probation. In effect, our resources support harsher treatment of offenders.

In truth, if there is some reason to think that some incarceration deters, there is no reason to think that relatively small percentage additions to that base do much to alter overall patterns of criminal conduct.

Thus, Orange County voters may well be right to reject the notion that building more jails to house more inmates will buy them more safety from crime. The rub, of course, is reconciling that with the get-tough-on-crime attitudes that have found their way into the criminal law.

In the end, the strait that we presently are navigating is not made hazardous by opposing judges, nor in the end is Sheriff Gates the only unlucky sailor.

The hazards are not judges, but our belief in harshness as a means of crime control on one side, and on the other, our paradoxical but justified skepticism about the very harshness that we prescribe.

County taxpayers are the sailors, and we are manning a vessel sorely in need of navigators who will teach us to avoid not Scylla and Charybdis, but the Straits of Messina altogether. Safer waters may lie in courses that feature education and the human services that build support networks and communities as means of achieving social peace, and that avoid altogether our schizophrenia about harshness as a tactic for combating crime.