Judge Labels Plan to Rent Jail Bizarre

The judge in charge of monitoring inmate populations at San Diego County’s chronically crowded jails has labeled “bizarre” a proposal that Orange County rent the newly built East Mesa jail near the Mexican border and house its inmates there.

El Cajon Superior Court Judge James A. Malkus said in a letter written Friday that he learned of the proposal, which surfaced earlier last week, from the press. He said he would appreciate notice if San Diego County supervisors get serious about the proposal.

But Malkus called it a “bizarre course of conduct.” And he stressed that the focus he wants to see is on a plan for reducing San Diego County’s inmate population.

The East Mesa jail was completed last fall, at a cost of nearly $80 million. San Diego County has opened the site’s 296-bed honor camp, and it now houses about 265 inmates. The maximum-security section of the jail, which could hold 1,500 inmates, stands empty because financially strapped San Diego County has no money to staff it.

At a court hearing last Tuesday, Malkus gave San Diego County supervisors until June 2 to come up with a funding plan, saying he expected the board to take up the issue at meetings last week. The board has yet to come up with a plan, however.

Word of the Orange County rental proposal, meanwhile, was disclosed last Wednesday. Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth first raised the idea in conversation with San Diego County Supervisor Leon Williams. After Roth’s inquiry, the San Diego board directed the county staff to explore the proposal.

Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates recommended last Thursday that Orange County set aside $43 million to move ahead with the plan, saying he wants “all 1,500 beds.”

Two of San Diego County’s jails, however, have been so packed in recent weeks with inmates that they violate population caps ordered by local judges in connection with lawsuits brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Despite the crowding, San Diego officials have been renting out a portion of the county’s jails since last fall--to the federal government, in a project designed to generate cash to open the East Mesa maximum-security facility. Inmates from the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego--itself crowded--are being held at the central County Jail a few blocks away.

In his letter to county attorneys, Malkus said that it is imperative that San Diego County lower the inmate totals at its jails. If federal prisoners have to be returned to the MCC, he said, “then that is what must be done.”