Sheriff Told to Upgrade Inmate Tracking System

Expressing indignation over the accidental release of five homicide inmates since mid-1995 from the Los Angeles County Jail, members of the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday ordered the Sheriff’s Department to immediately devise a plan to upgrade its antiquated inmate tracking system.

The supervisors told several top sheriff’s officials--who could barely get a word in edgewise amid the bitter scolding they received--to report next week on their progress.

“When you lose five inmates because of faulty record-keeping, we have a major problem on our hands,” Supervisor Gloria Molina told them. “This has to be raised to a level that is going to be immediate.”

Added Supervisor Mike Antonovich: “It’s such a chaotic mess. I don’t understand why we can’t have a simplified system.”

The method of tracking inmates in the jail system, nicknamed the ‘Pony Express,’ is a paper-driven process so outdated that there is no computer link between the department and the county’s court system. When about 2,000 inmates arrive each evening on sheriff’s buses from court, their paperwork is tossed off the bus in yellow bags.

More than two dozen clerks labor late into the night to sort, file and input the data into an outmoded jail computer system.

The cumbersome process has led to the mistaken release of 22 inmates this year. Despite repeated requests, sheriff’s officials have yet to release the inmates’ names or alleged crimes, except for those charged with homicide.

In the latest incident, murder suspect Gregory Stinson, 31, walked away from the Men’s Central Jail almost two weeks ago because of a clerical error in the jail’s document control room.

Stinson remains at large, along with three homicide inmates erroneously set free over the past 15 months--for reasons ranging from miscommunication among law enforcement agencies to paperwork errors at the jail.

The system is so problem-prone that the department keeps a “trouble” basket for files that need to be double-checked with court clerks.

“I don’t understand why this can’t be the first priority to get resolved so you no longer have a ‘trouble’ box,” Antonovich said.

Sheriff’s Cmdr. Daniel L. Burt, flanked by several assistants, said he was hopeful that the department could hook up with new computers now being installed in the county’s Superior and Municipal courtrooms. He said he expects the hookup to occur within three to six months.

“We are on the threshold” of making the fixes, Burt said.

But Molina scoffed at Burt’s response, saying she wanted immediate results.

“I mean, honestly,” Molina told him. “You could get a simple Macintosh system. You could find a way of tracking it better than the way you are now with these paper files that are traveling from place to place.”

Molina said she has become frustrated because projects that are deemed urgent often are plagued with delays. She emphasized that the board authorized the purchase of a court computer system 30 months ago with the understanding that the sheriff would be consulted. So far, Molina said, little appears to have been done.

“And the worst part about it is that you’ve got five people that should not have been released,” she said. “Only one that you’ve caught. That’s just unbelievable.”

Tuesday’s initial board motion, prepared by Antonovich and Supervisor Deane Dana, had called for the Sheriff’s Department to spend a month studying ways to update the system. At Molina’s request, the timeline was shortened to one week, with the county’s chief administrative officer directed to oversee the process.