A Paperwork Nightmare

At the center of the document control room--the buzzing, crowded nerve center of the Los Angeles County Jail system--sits a large file bin labeled, simply, “TROUBLE.”

By the end of most nights, a hundred or more inmate files are crammed into the metal bin, each containing paperwork so confusing that document clerks cannot determine whether inmates should be further imprisoned or set free.

If this woefully antiquated system of keeping track of prisoners is working properly, the files will be handed over to a team of “trouble-shooters” who will contact the courts the next morning to clear up the problems.

But--as Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department officials have come to realize with the erroneous releases of five homicide suspects since mid-1995--there is a troubling margin for error in this chaotic paper-driven process.

The system is so outdated that sheriff’s deputies refer to it as the “Pony Express.” Large yellow bags containing thousands of documents are literally tossed from the sheriff’s inmate buses after they arrive at the jail from court each evening.

About 30 clerks labor late into the night, sorting, inputting and filing the paperwork, which occasionally arrives in crinkled heaps from three dozen courthouses. The clerks, paid about $25,000 a year, often find themselves struggling to make sense of documents from 2,000 court cases a day.

Something as simple as the messy handwriting of a harried Superior Court clerk, working quickly to get the paperwork on the bus, can cause big problems later at the sheriff’s document center.

“We do a lot of guessing with the paperwork,” said Beverly Bostic, a supervisor in the document control room. “We have to leave a lot over for the trouble-shooters.”

Unfortunately, sheriff’s officials say, some of the problem cases never make it to the “trouble” basket for double-checking. Such was the case last week when Gregory Stinson, 31, was erroneously freed from the Men’s Central Jail after a clerk failed to enter information on his charges into the computer system.

Thus far this year, 22 inmates held in County Jail for an assortment of crimes have been erroneously released, compared to 14 for all of last year, according to department statistics.

Sheriff’s officials have failed to provide details of the mistaken releases except in the five homicide cases. On Friday, they said they eventually plan to give specifics on the non-homicide cases.

Although mistaken releases have decreased sharply from 1983--when 49 people were erroneously freed--sheriff’s officials say they are troubled by the continuing mistakes. To remedy the situation, they say they hope to put in place a new computer network to keep better track of the 200,000 inmates processed through the jail system annually.

“This was the state-of-the-art system for 1970,” Sgt. Ron Spear, department spokesman, said of the current procedures. “But here we are in 1996, and we are still using the system.”

Of the five inmates held on homicide charges and mistakenly let loose over the past 15 months, four--including Stinson--remain at large.

Sheriff’s officials directly attribute the discharge of three of those inmates to errors at the document center, which serves as a clearinghouse for the 19,000-plus prisoner county jail system. (Miscommunications between law enforcement agencies have been blamed for the other two incidents).

In July 1995, Anait Zakarian of Glendale was released from the Sybil Brand Institute after a clerk confused her name with that of another inmate. Zakarian was awaiting trial in the 1994 slaying of a Glendale travel agent. She remains at large.

In August, Pedro Quezada, 21, was let go after a clerk misunderstood his paperwork. Quezada, who was being held in connection with a 1991 killing in Los Angeles, later turned himself in to sheriff’s deputies in Fontana.

Last week, the error occurred after murder charges against Stinson were dismissed in Superior Court but were immediately refiled in Municipal Court.

Word of the updated filing arrived at the document center, located in a cramped corner of the Men’s Central Jail, four hours after the Superior Court order. However, a clerk failed to type in the information, even after properly entering data for 16 other inmates when the records arrived, officials said.

“Someone might think that they saw something that they didn’t,” Bostic said. “Or another paper might come in and it won’t get entered into the system, like what happened with this latest case. We get the information in and we think, ‘This is it.’ And the man goes home.”

As a result of the latest gaffe, department brass sent an order to clerks in the document center requiring a double check of information put into the computer system on inmates being held in murder, rape, child molestation, stalking or spousal abuse cases. Because the office is understaffed, Bostic said she has been asking day-shift clerks to work overtime to complete the task.

Needing to perform perfectly in a less-than-perfect work environment has left the clerks frustrated.

“They say we are supposed to be part of one big happy family,” Bostic said. “Well we don’t feel that way here. We need better computers. If they could give us a basic form from all the courts, that would help.”

As for the penmanship of the court clerks, Bostic said, “That needs to be improved too.”

“We don’t write too well ourselves, but no one has to read what we are writing,” she said. “We have to interpret what the court clerks are putting in their documents. They really need to go back to school and take a penmanship class.”

Department officials say they are developing a computer system that will link the courts and the Sheriff’s Department. They hope to have the first part of the system operational sometime next year.

For the clerks, the improvements couldn’t come soon enough.

The paper-shuffling begins at 2:30 p.m., when the clerks arrive for their nine-hour shifts. As the day progresses, about 2,000 prisoners arrive from their court appearances on the sheriff’s black-and-white buses, and the yellow “Pony Express” bags are dumped out and carried to Cynthia Almeida’s desk.

Almeida combs through the contents, placing personal property in one pile and paperwork in another. “On a busy night, I could empty as many as 80 or 90 bags,” said Almeida, 24.

The paperwork is next forwarded to a desk where clerks date, sort and stack it. The documents of new inmates are placed in one pile, while those for ongoing cases are stacked in another.

The clerks must make sure the records--which come in all shapes and conditions from the courthouses--do not stick together or get misplaced.

It is Gertrude Grice’s job to pick up the sorted documents and carry them down a cluttered walkway to a station where several more clerks put them in numbered folders.

Grice has been doing this job for 15 years. She figures she makes at least 25 trips up and down the hallway each night. Sometimes she goes home with her feet aching.

“You get used to it,” she said.

Yet another worker carries the folders to Alfonso Hernandez, a supervising records clerk, who distributes the files to nine employees stationed at outdated computers. The clerks read the paperwork and are expected to type the necessary information into the system. In the case of Stinson, that wasn’t done.

“There are so many papers to look at,” Hernandez said. “And we’ve got to be accurate in all of them. . . . You are dealing with people’s lives and that’s pressure enough as it is. There’s just a lot of responsibility.”

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Room for Error

The Sheriff’s Department, which has mistakenly released 22 inmates this year, uses an antiquated system for processing prisoners.

STEP 1: Inmates arrive at the jail throughout the evening on Sheriff’s Department buses. Their personal belongings and paperwork from court are in tow in large yellow bags secured in the buses’ luggage compartments.

STEP 2: Deputies carry the bags to an area known as the Inmate Reception Center.

STEP 3: The bags are dumped out on a table and sorted. Personal belonging are sent to the property room, and the paperwork is sent to another desk--where it is dated and stacked.

STEP 4: A clerk carries the papers to a third desk, where each case is placed in a numbered folder.

STEP 5: The folders are carried to the unit supervisor, who distributes the packets to nine custody records clerks.

STEP 6: The clerks read through the paperwork, which has been prepared by officials at courthouses around the county, and input the necessary information into the computer system, updating such information as pending court dates and the filing or dropping of charges.

STEP 7: A senior clerk double-checks the work of the other clerks to ensure they have entered the correct information on inmates held for murder, rape, child molestion, stalking or spousal abuse.

STEP 8: Problem files, such as those with missing case numbers or writing that is difficult to decipher, are placed in a “trouble” basket. The next morning, clerks called trouble-shooters contact court clerks to clear up problems.

STEP 9: Completed packets are filed amid a wall of folders that looks much like the record-keeping system in a doctor’s office.