Seal Beach Locks In a Net Profit With Private Jail : Government: Savings, plus income from charging other agencies for cell space, pays for upgrading the facility. Next year, the city expects a $90,000 surplus.

Amid growing debate about privatizing county services, the small city of Seal Beach has quietly completed its first year with the only privately run jail in Orange County.

City officials are calling the experiment an unqualified success.

“This is a pretty gutsy maneuver for Seal Beach,” said Police Capt. Gary Maiten, who oversees jail operations for the city. “I stuck my neck out politically; the city manager did; the police chief did. And it’s worked.”

In the jail’s first year, the city saved more than $30,000 in county booking fees and operations costs and earned an additional $85,000, Maiten said. The earnings come from fees paid by the federal Bureau of Prisons to house parole violators and from prisoners who pay $65 a day to stay here rather than in county jail.

The city has repaid all start-up costs of refurbishing the previously unused jail and officials expect the jail to net more than $90,000 in its second year.

The only other privately run police facility in the county is a six-cell holding area in Irvine, operated by Florida-based Wackenhut Corrections Corp. Unlike a jail, the holding facility is used only to book prisoners, who then are either released or taken to county jail.

Since it opened, also a year ago, it has saved Irvine $70,000 in personnel costs, Police Cmdr. Gene Norden said.

Supervisor Marian Bergeson called the Seal Beach jail “an interesting demonstration” that merits the county’s attention.

Bergeson has asked for research into the possibility of privatizing some county jail operations. “From a cost-effective perspective, it certainly warrants considerable study,” she said. “Most of the information we have been given has been very positive.”

Bergeson said she will push for legislation to change state law that prohibits counties from turning over jail operations to a private company.

But County Sheriff Brad Gates said there is no comparison between a privately run city jail housing low-risk, short-term inmates and the county jail system. Gates and others say there also are ethical problems with placing the penal system into private hands.

“When you take somebody’s freedom away from them, I don’t feel the issue of profit should be part of the equation,” Gates said. “I really believe that’s one of the primary reasons government was formed.”

Seal Beach officials debated and studied the idea for a year before agreeing in April, 1994, to contract with Bud Grossman for the construction and private operation of the jail. Grossman is a retired western region director of the federal Bureau of Prisons. The city agreed to split all expenses and profits with Grossman’s Seal Beach-based company, Corrections Services Inc.

Construction of the six-cell jail, with 28 beds and a drunk tank, was completed in August of last year.

Since then, the city has saved the county’s $176-per-prisoner booking fee each time a prisoner can be kept in the local jail. The city also receives $62 each for federal prisoners sent to the jail for parole violations.

And some inmates have opted to pay $65 a day for a stay in the city jail to avoid doing time in the rougher county jail. Those charged with more serious crimes such as rape, robbery or murder are not housed in the city jail.

The environment is low-key inside the immaculate jail, where prisoners, whose offenses range from drunk driving to tax evasion, typically serve from 30- to 90-day sentences. The jail has color televisions, vending machines and an exercise yard.

“There’s never been a problem since I’ve been here,” said one prisoner, who is serving the last week of a 90-day sentence for parole violation. He said inmates would not consider escape because of the two-year minimum sentence it would bring.

“They could leave the gates unlocked and nobody would walk,” the man said.

Grossman, who was appointed by a federal court to oversee jail operations in Orange County from 1985 to 1988, said most of the jail employees are retired police officers or recent police academy graduates. Jail commander Dave Crouse spent 32 years with the federal Bureau of Prisons and was commander of the Terminal Island jail before retirement.

The primary cost savings for both Seal Beach and Irvine come from salaries, which are less than half those paid to police department employees.

Seal Beach Police Chief Bill Stearns said he has received inquiries from throughout the United States since the jail began operations last August.

“This has definitely worked out on this smaller scale,” Stearns said, “but I’m not saying this is something I would advocate for the whole county.”

Newport Beach attorney Tom Reinecke, a member of the executive committee of the county Republican Party and son of former California Lt. Gov. Ed Reinecke, is also an advocate of privatizing prisons.

“Especially in Orange County, where we’re bankrupt, this presents an ideal opportunity where we should privatize not only the jails but a number of other county functions,” Reinecke said. “This is the ‘90s. The time of big government is over.”

But Gilbert Geis, professor emeritus of criminology at UC Irvine and former president of the American Society of Criminology, says that turning jail operations at the county level over to private operators would be “a lousy idea.”

“There’s not really any very good evidence that [privatization of prisons] has accomplished the job better or that it’s particularly cheaper,” Geis said. “I also have a moral objection to giving private operators the right to use force.”

Geis said that while the Seal Beach jail was an interesting experiment, if prisoners there pose no threat to jail operators they probably shouldn’t be incarcerated.

“I figure, if a guy isn’t going to do hard time, he shouldn’t do any time at all,” Geis said.

Seal Beach Councilwoman Gwen Forsythe said it is precisely because there are large numbers of low-risk prisoners serving short sentences that city leaders decided to earn revenues from the unused city jail.

“I don’t think the city is out to make money off of incarcerated people,” Forsythe said. “We are looking for ways to continue to provide public safety to our residents.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Seal Beach City Jail

The jail, once a fiscal drain, has turned profitable with private management. A closer look at the facility and who goes there:

- Construction: 1978

- Location: 911 Seal Beach Blvd., behind the Seal Beach Police Station

- Owner: City of Seal Beach

- Management: Corrections Services Inc.

- Face lift: City spent $80,000 to remodel the jail by 1994

- Facilities: Six cells, 28 beds, detoxification room, TVs, vending machines and microwave oven

- 1994 earnings: Approximately $85,000, which paid remodeling costs

- 1995 projected earnings: $90,000-$120,000

PRISONER PROFILE

The jail began accepting low-risk, minimum security prisoners in August, 1994.

- Prisoners brought in by local law enforcement agencies and Federal Bureau of Prisons

- Typical crimes include drunk driving, parole violations, embezzlement and IRS violations

- Jail houses men only

- Average length of stay is 30-90 days

- High-risk prisoners immediately transferred to the Orange County Jail

Source: City of Seal Beach; Researched by RUSS LOAR / For The Times