No Contraband Found in Seal Beach Jail

An exhaustive search of the privately run Seal Beach jail Wednesday night turned up no evidence of drugs or alcohol, despite an inmate’s earlier allegation that the facility’s inmates regularly use the contraband under the uncaring eyes of jail guards.

City Manager Keith Till said the Seal Beach Police Department and Texas-based Correctional Systems Inc. (CSI) launched the investigation after learning that a prisoner serving 90 days of a year-long felony sentence claimed in Superior Court that inmates consume alcohol and smoke marijuana in the jail yard.

“It would be irresponsible for us not to respond with an investigation,” Till said. “But in detention facilities anywhere in the country, these things come up. It would be a bigger problem if we didn’t investigate it.”

Seal Beach Police Capt. Gary Maiten, support division commander, said his three-man internal affairs group and a two-man CSI team spent about four hours searching the jail and its prisoners Wednesday night.

“We shook the entire jail and didn’t find any alcohol or drugs,” Maiten said. “We also searched the prisoners and found no alcohol or drugs.”

Maiten said he learned late Wednesday that one of the jail’s work furlough prisoners, serving time for felony drunk driving, told Superior Court Judge David O. Carter that drug and alcohol use was common at the jail and was often sneaked into the facility in bottles carried by visitors.

The police captain said the investigation, which he expects to finish early next week, will include a complete review of procedures, but he added that current methods would prevent alcohol and drugs from being smuggled in.

The 30-person facility has been run by the independent CSI for about two years and is expected to bring $120,000 to city coffers this year. Under conditions of its contract, only nonviolent prisoners--mostly probation violators--are held at the jail.

Jail Administrator Thurston Best would only confirm that an investigation was underway. Officials in the company’s Texas headquarters and the regional office in Whittier could not be reached for comment.

CSI has contracted with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons for federal parole violators to be held at the facility, typically for 90 days. Other inmates pay $65 daily to stay at the jail, rather than be sent to the overcrowded Orange County Jail or a state penitentiary.

Patricia A. Ellington, community corrections manager for the federal Bureau of Prisons, said her office has made a report to its Washington headquarters and is waiting for instructions. Ellington added that she cannot recall another complaint of any kind brought against the Seal Beach jail.

Superior Court Judge Carter said the unusual allegation of drugs and alcohol in a jail was so uncommon that he immediately contacted the district attorney’s office.

“You don’t hear this one too much,” Carter said. “And the point is, of all the places that you should never have narcotics, that is the place that you shouldn’t have them.”

Seal Beach is due to renegotiate its contract with CSI in January.