South County Under Siege

Another blow to the South County has occurred with the approval by the Board of Supervisors of a nearly 8,000-inmate maximum security jail to be built in Lake Forest, replacing a 1,200-bed minimum security facility that is there now.

Strong proponents Sheriff Brad Gates and his staff turned out in force at the Nov. 5 Board of Supervisors meeting to push for the board’s approval to locate the jail in this densely populated residential South County location.

Gates was addressed as the “Honorable” Sheriff Gates and given an unlimited amount of time to speak. Lake Forest Mayor Richard T. Dixon, mayor of the city where the project will be built, was allocated three minutes to make his point regarding a flawed environmental impact report.

Many concerned South County residents were unable to wait for what ended up to be more than four hours of waiting until the jail issue came up on the agenda and left the meeting. The handful who stayed, several with babies in their arms, were no match for the large showing of Santa Ana residents and officials, including Santa Ana’s mayor, city manager and Chamber of Commerce members.

Several Lake Forest police officers said in their testimonies that drug rings are commonly run out of jails and would bring gang members into the area for drug activities. The thousands of visitors to the jail alone would transform the area.

The option of locating the facility in Victorville, where it would be welcomed as a source of jobs, was mentioned but got little response.

Recently elected Supervisor Todd Spitzer has voiced his objections to the airport and jail locations. His vote won’t be enough. Gov. Pete Wilson’s selection of a candidate to replace Marian Bergeson is critical. Hopefully Wilson won’t be influenced by special interests promoting these projects.

MARIE WALSH

Trabuco Canyon

* Finally, the prison boom is having direct effects on the sheltered masses. Treating alcoholics and drug addicts has always been the right answer to 80% or 90% of all crime.

Education over incarceration and human kindness over cruelty are nonpartisan issues but require the attention and the support of communities which have been in denial. “Lock ‘em up, throw away the key and don’t bother me with the details” has been the undercurrent of energy which has created the problem.

Dostoevsky said, “We can judge the degree of civilization in a society by entering its prisons.” Now we must begin a new, more civilized system, one in which rehabilitation is our only goal. Some models do exist right here in Southern California. California Rehabilitation Center in Norco is one state facility that is geared toward and guided by higher principles.

When we focus our attention on teaching life skills, parenting, anger management, spiritual regeneration, basic education and job training we are doing the right thing. It may not be politically correct or very popular but it works to help people reenter the community. Most prisons have no such programs to speak of.

The Probation Department’s job would be easier with more enlightened and more prepared parolees, but agents also must be retrained to not be the “enemy.” Many brag about the high percentages of ex-criminals they send back to prison instead of bragging about how many successes they have.

My experience says 75% of inmates could be released to other, less costly programs, if they existed. That is 1.2 million (75% of 1.7 million prisoners) American human beings that are giving a call for help.

DAN MILLSTEIN

Program Director

Visions for Prisons

Costa Mesa

* Did we lose our marbles?

Why are we building prisons in residential areas? Don’t we have enough deserts and other remote areas?

Why are we trying to build a large commercial airport in a residential area? Don’t we have enough seashores? There, planes could take off against the wind (as preferred by pilots), thereby not disturbing anyone.

Why are we taking Mello-Roos taxes (without adequate representation) to build a transportation corridor, and then charge these taxpayers for using the corridor? In other words, why are we taxing the same people twice?

It appears we need another Boston Tea Party to right these wrongs.

G.A. MEZEI

Aliso Viejo