Board Tells Sheriff to Seek Renters for 3 Closed Jails

Unable to house thousands of its own prisoners, Los Angeles County now wants to become a landlord for everyone else’s bad guys.

The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday directed Sheriff Sherman Block to seek bids to rent any of three closed jails to public or private agencies to house state or federal prisoners. The goal is to raise funds to help open yet another empty jail to house the county’s own prisoners--the new high-tech, 4,100-bed Twin Towers, which the sheriff lacks the money to operate.

The board’s action followed a Times series last week spotlighting problems in the county’s overcrowded jail system, where a bed shortage since the closing of the three jails in the last three years has led to the release of inmates who had served less than 25% of their sentences.

“I want this moving quickly,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, a co-sponsor of the rental proposal.

Undersheriff Jerry L. Harper told the board that the department would move swiftly to seek suitors for the Biscailuz Center, Pitchess Honor Rancho and Mira Loma jails. Block has said he shut the three facilities, which together housed more than 4,000 prisoners, because of budget constraints.

After the meeting, however, Harper indicated to reporters that there is little chance of a quick fix.

Renting a jail to a private operator would require legislation because state law specifies that only sheriffs can operate county jails, Harper said. “Certainly we have reservations,” he said, “[but] I don’t want to poison the waters. . . . Let them proceed with the [bids].”

Moreover, there is “a low chance right now” of renting a jail to the state, Harper said. He based that assessment on current negotiations between the department and the state to rent the 1,089-bed Mira Loma facility for up to $10 million a year, with security services provided by sheriff’s deputies.

Should an agreement be reached, Harper said, current state rules call for training newly hired deputies for 23 weeks before they could staff the facility.

County officials have said their No. 1 law enforcement priority is finding money to open the $373-million, downtown Twin Towers facility, which was completed last fall but would cost about $100 million annually to operate.

The county has been unable to find the $18 million that would be needed to open just a portion of the facility for six months beginning in early 1997.

If the funds were found, Block has said, he would initially relocate high-security inmates from the overcrowded Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic rather than immediately expand the number of available beds in the county jail system. Since the closing of the jails, the Sheriff’s Department has room for 20,099 prisoners--20% fewer than in 1991.

At Tuesday’s board meeting, Harper reminded supervisors that the sheriff wants to open Twin Towers “as soon as possible.” But no one offered any immediate solutions.

Nor did Harper get any encouragement when he asked the board to consider reopening one of the three closed facilities to house misdemeanor offenders--prisoners now largely forced out of the jails because of overcrowding.

At this point, the sheriff is releasing inmates sentenced to a year in jail after 83 days; those sentenced to six months serve less than six weeks. In addition, the sheriff has placed thousands of convicted inmates on work release--but more than 25% are escapees at any given time.

At the board meeting, Yaroslavsky warned the Sheriff’s Department not to assume that it will receive the revenues generated by renting out the closed jails. A fourth jail that housed 1,800 inmates, the Hall of Justice facility, has been shut since 1993 because of earthquake damage.

If money is found elsewhere to open Twin Towers, Yaroslavsky said, jail rental revenues should be considered fair game to finance other budget-strapped county departments. “I don’t want to be listening to a discussion in three months that says, ‘This is the Sheriff’s Department’s money,’ ” he said.

Antonovich, the co-sponsor of the jail-rental measure, threw another element into the debate. If the rentals produce added revenues, he said, his top priority is “getting officers on the streets.” Badly needed renovations at other jail facilities--another top concern of the Sheriff’s Department--might have to wait, Antonovich said.

The board also moved Tuesday to convene a task force to study the creation of a court-supervised drug treatment custody facility. Such a program existed at Biscailuz Center before it was closed, Block told the board last week.

At Block’s request, a controversial proposal that the Sheriff’s Department hire its own travel agent was tabled indefinitely Tuesday. “Right now, I think we have bigger things to fry,” Harper said. “There are other things on the table that are much more important.”