Women Behind Bars : Reflecting...

It’s jarring at first, but they say you get used to it. At the entrance to the Orange County Women’s Jail, a pair of heavy cell doors slam shut with a sound that rings through the facility like an empty metal box.

But as you approach the first cellblock, it’s clear that this is not an empty place.

Inside the large, blue-gray cell are several woman wearing jumpsuits. They are reading, chatting and putting on makeup, bunking in barred dorm rooms while they wait to see a judge.

They’re invisible to most. Yet the many female inmates who crowd the cell are vivid reminders that the Orange County Women’s Jail in the downtown Civic Center is not as empty as its echo suggests.

For a variety of complex reasons, the number of women incarcerated in Orange County has risen dramatically in the past two years.

The average daily population in the three county facilities housing women is up by well over a third, recording an average of 569 women incarcerated each day. Before the increase, the number stayed fairly constant, hovering around the 420 mark from 1988 to 1992.

Judges, prosecutors and correction officials offer a number of explanations for the recent surge: drugs, increased violence, the economy or even the possibility that society doesn’t excuse women anymore because of their sex. Statistics show they’re all partly responsible.

“I don’t know how you can point to any one thing that’s causing it,” says Huntington Beach Police patrol Sgt. Bill Peterson, a 25-year law enforcement veteran.

“Certainly the economy and lack of viable employment have something to do with it. What we’re seeing on patrol is a lot more women doing shoplifting-type crimes, and just a lot more theft involving women,” he said.

Peterson says he and the officers he supervises on patrol have noticed more drug use and violent crime involving women. He added that he’s also noted in the past two years an increase in women involved in white-collar crime.

“That’s something recent,” Peterson said. “But they’re doing those crimes too, especially with credit cards.”

The increase here is in line with state and national trends, which indicate that women everywhere are committing more crime. They begin their time in temporary jails, many of them moving on to permanent prison facilities to serve sentences for more serious offenses.

“We’ve all talked it over here, because the increase is very interesting,” said Orange County Asst. Dist. Atty. John D. Conley. “We don’t have a simple answer.”

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While men still dominate the jail and prison system here and throughout the United States, national figures show that total arrests of men have increased only 5.2% from 1988 to 1992, while the total for women jumped 14.4% during the same period.

Sue Alvis, inmate records manager for the Orange County Jail, calls the recent increase here a “horrendous jump” that continues to push the number of female inmates way over the rate of capacity. The Orange County Women’s Jail is supposed to hold 265 inmates, but so far this year the jail has averaged 329 women per day.

Alvis says the accelerating figures take their toll on the system, while fueling the already controversial topic of jail crowding.

“We constantly have people waiting for a bed,” Alvis said. “You just do what you can.”

Doing what they can often means putting additional bunks in the already crowded dorm cells and giving well-behaved inmates an “early kick” by automatically releasing them three days before their sentences are completed, Alvis said.

Because the women’s jail facilities in Orange County have become so crowded in the past few years, jail officials twice a month automatically subtract five days from the sentences of all female inmates, she added.

Across the state, the number of women in the three California Department of Correction prisons has quadrupled in the past decade and increased tenfold from 1971 to 1991.

A new women’s prison is scheduled for completion in 1995 near the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, at the cost of $152 million, says CDC spokesman Bill Gengler.

“All three of the women’s facilities are well over the designed rate of capacity,” Gengler said. “We wouldn’t build it if we didn’t think we could fill it.”

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A Justice Department study involving 8,000 law enforcement agencies throughout the country reported 256% more women in state and federal prisons from 1980 to 1990, compared with a 140% increase in the male prison population.

The study recorded that arrests of women on serious felony charges are also on the rise throughout America, climbing 32.5% from 1988 to 1992, reaching almost 63,000. Spokeswoman Traci Snell said the figure is significant but still considerably lower than the 452,453 men placed behind bars for violent crimes in 1992.

Most law enforcement officials agree that the system has begun to crack down on female offenders during recent years. They say that today’s national anti-crime climate has put a stop to any kind of preferential treatment based on sex.

“I think (the increase) shows the willingness and desire of judges and prosecutors to mete out equal justice for women,” says Myron Orleans, a Cal State Fullerton sociology professor specializing in criminology.

Orange County Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg says the justice system in the county and throughout the United States is getting tougher on all criminals, women included.

“The crackdown on crime is extending to everything from shoplifting to the most heinous of crimes,” she said. “With the law-and-order mentality, women are now going to jail for lesser crimes and doing time they wouldn’t have done 10 years ago.”

Orleans also speculated that illicit drug use may be related to the increase.

“Women have become more vulnerable to drugs, starting in the middle ‘80s,” Orleans said.

Orange County Superior Court Judge David O. Carter agrees, saying drugs are involved in the cases of many female defendants in his courtroom.

“I think that women have gotten caught up in narcotics for whatever sociological reasons,” he said.

Although he says he has seen an increase in women charged with serious felonies during his 12 years on the bench, Carter says the majority of those cases involve the influence of a boyfriend or husband.

“They’re usually with a male, driving a getaway car or assisting in some way,” he said.

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Some experts say an increasingly violent society is also to blame for the swelling female jail population. And according to FBI statistical trends, violence is an attitude without gender. Records show that not only are more women being arrested, but they are getting more aggressive.

There were 32.5% more women arrested for crimes of violence (including murder, robbery and aggravated assault) from 1988 to 1992 in the United States; arrests of men for the same crimes were up 21.8%.

In the county, 1992 figures show that the majority of women continue to be arrested for drug offenses, followed by burglary, theft and assault--in approximately the same proportion that they were 10 years earlier.

Of the 3,685 female felony arrests in the county in 1992, one-third were for drug violations, 23% were for burglary, 17% were for theft and 8% for assault.

Statistics also show that Orange County men continue to be the more violent of the sexes, with an 88.5% increase in the number of them arrested for violent crime here from 1988 to 1992. But violent crime arrests for Orange County women were also up during that period, soaring 66.2%, according to Charlotte Rhea, research analyst for the U.S. Department of Justice.

While there are more women involved in gangs these days, they still account for only 1% of gang members in Orange County. But the aggressive attitude has apparently rubbed off on women in prison.

“There are more assaults (in custody) than a decade ago; there’s no doubt about it,” said Deputy Ann Gorczyca, who has worked at the Orange County Women’s Jail for 17 years. “(The inmates) are a lot more bold. When I first started, it was more drug-related,” she said. “Now, there’s more violent crime.”

One thing that hasn’t changed in the Orange County Women’s Jail, the female portion of the James Music Center in Garden Grove and the Intake Relief Center in Santa Ana, is the return of repeat offenders--familiar faces to the guards.

“They tell me what they’re going to do when they get out, and some of them try to turn their lives around,” said Gorczyca, one of the 40 deputies, four special sheriff’s officers and four correction services technicians at the central facility.

“But once they step out that door, it’s a lot different. Sometimes it’s only a week before they’re back, and when they see me, they look the other way. They’re embarrassed.”