Overcrowding Plagues Youth Facilities Too

While the overcrowding and early inmate releases at Orange County’s adult jails capture the headlines, two smaller institutions that serve troubled youths are quietly bursting at the seams.

The inmate population at Juvenile Hall hit a record high of 501 a few weeks ago, even though the detention center is supposed to house only 374.

At the Orangewood Children’s Home, which provides temporary shelter to abused and neglected children, a record 314 kids were registered recently. The facility is designed to hold just 236 beds.

The high demand for services puzzles probation and social services officials, who also express concerns about the county’s ability to handle the bulging caseloads with existing resources.

“I think this is an accident waiting to happen,” Supervisor William G. Steiner said. “You have an excellent and dedicated staff that is frankly exhausted. They are working tremendous amounts of overtime. . . . I’m afraid we could have a tragedy.”

Others share Steiner’s uneasiness, including members of the Orange County Juvenile Justice Commission, a court-appointed oversight panel that last week sent a letter to supervisors urging them to provide the Probation Department with the funds needed to address Juvenile Hall overcrowding.

“It’s certainly alarming,” Cindy Stokke, the commission’s chairwoman, said. “We are extremely concerned about the overcrowding, not just from a budget [standpoint], but because of safety and security.”

The Board of Supervisors last month created its own task force to examine the institutional overcrowding issues at the adult jails as well as at Juvenile Hall and Orangewood.

The supervisors have identified overcrowding as their top budgetary concern. But with the county only a month out of bankruptcy, little money is available in the 1996-97 county budget to address the problem.

Law enforcement officials are hoping that voters approve a roughly $2-billion prison construction bond measure that probably will be on the November ballot. The measure could provide some of the money needed for construction of Orange County detention facilities.

The windfall would go largely to the Sheriff’s Department, which plans a 1,600-bed expansion of the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange. And any remaining funds might be set aside for a proposed expansion of the James A. Musick Branch Jail in Lake Forest. The plan to expand Musick, however, is opposed by some neighboring residents and has yet to win approval from the Board of Supervisors.

Overcrowding has plagued the county’s adult jails for decades. But the issue received new attention in recent months as supervisors discussed ways of stemming the early release of jail inmates, 13,000 of whom were freed last year before they had completed serving their sentences.

The Probation Department faces a similar overcrowding problem, but on a smaller scale. Officials granted early releases to hundreds of delinquent juveniles last year, and no longer book misdemeanor cases and probation violators into Juvenile Hall because the beds are needed for more serious juvenile offenders.

Though the population fluctuates, the detention facility frequently operates at more than 100 inmates over its 374-bed official capacity, requiring juvenile counselors who staff the hall to work mandatory overtime.

“Whenever you have more [inmates] in an institution, you have an increase in the level of stress and tension,” said Michael Schumacher, director of the Probation Department. “It’s inevitable that when you are working long hours under stressful conditions, a system breakdown is possible. We are working diligently to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

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Officials report no major incidents related to overcrowding. But Bruce Malloy, executive director of the juvenile justice commission and a former Juvenile Hall counselor, said the long hours and packed conditions make patrolling the facility more difficult.

“When you work so much, it detracts from your family life,” Malloy said. “Safety becomes an issue because you need to always be alert. When you are working a 16-hour shift, you can sometimes feel like you are at the end of your rope.”

If voters statewide approve the November bond measure, the Probation Department could receive as much as $10 million. Officials said some of that money probably would be spent to build a boot camp for juvenile offenders. But additional funds would be needed to operate the camp.

The department is also focusing on alternatives to incarceration, including house arrest for offenders who wear electronic bracelets. Some nonviolent offenders are now assigned to the new Options program, an all-day school, counseling and job-training program.

More than a third of roughly 900 offenders handled by the Probation Department are assigned to alternative programs, but Schumacher said more detention space is needed to house the increasing number of violent youths.

Like Juvenile Hall, the Orangewood Children’s Home has also seen a recent surge in population.

Larry Leaman, director of the Social Services Agency, said the home usually sees an upswing in cases when school lets out and teachers report cases of suspected abuse involving students as they go on summer vacation.

With Orangewood’s population hitting record levels, some children have to double up in single rooms or sometimes sleep in the gym.

Over the next decade, officials expect demand for temporary shelter to increase by at least 20%. The Social Services Agency is hoping to build a facility at either the Tustin or El Toro Marine base, both of which are set to close by 1999. But funding still must be found for the project.

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The agency is also trying to recruit more foster parents who can take in abused or neglected children on a temporary basis. Leaman said the need is especially great for Latino foster families who speak Spanish.

Even though overcrowding at Orangewood does not get the same attention as it does in the jails, officials said its space crunch needs to be addressed before the safety of the youths is in greater jeopardy.

“These children are very vulnerable,” Steiner said. “If they are released inappropriately, we could have increased victimization of children.”

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Kid Crowd

Juvenile Hall overcrowding problems will considerably worsen if projections are accurate. Average daily population:

* Projection

Source: Orange County Probation Department