4,000 Inmates May Get House Arrest

Faced with continued jail overcrowding, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department is pushing forward with efforts to place nonviolent convicts--many of them white-collar criminals--on a house arrest program.

Sheriff’s officials say they are prepared to send up to 4,000 convicts home with electronic monitoring bracelets, more than double the current number, to free up jail beds and ensure that more hardened convicts serve their full sentences behind bars. A year ago, convicted inmates who were not allowed to participate in a work release program were serving less than 25% of their sentences in jail.

The effort has been touted by sheriff’s officials as an ideal way to keep the worst offenders locked up longer. But critics question whether the Sheriff’s Department has the ability to adequately monitor the actions of the inmates it places on house arrest or work release.

Earlier this month, a Los Angeles County Municipal Court judge ordered the Sheriff’s Department to put back behind bars a man sent home on electronic monitoring after being convicted of stealing thousands of dollars from business people who had sought his services. David Sanford Turkin, who had been sentenced to three years in jail, was discovered working out of a motel room in Tarzana accepting advance fees for “business plans.”

Sheriff’s officials did not know about the man’s activities until they were notified by Deputy City Atty. Don Kass, who had prosecuted Turkin. Kass said he was surprised to find out that Turkin was out of jail and on house arrest.

After investigating the matter, Kass said, he discovered that while Turkin was on electronic monitoring, he appeared to be participating in some of the same activities that got him into trouble with the law in the first place.

Electronic monitoring “makes what we do appear meaningless,” said Kass, who specializes in prosecuting white-collar criminals. “The judge says, ‘I sentence you to three years,’ and the gavel pounds. . . . Yet unbeknownst to the public, the sentence is completely emasculated.”

Sheriff’s officials counter that, given the fact that the department is under court order to reduce its inmate population, it has no choice but to return some convicts to the community through monitoring or work release--even though judges demand otherwise.

“This is an age-old problem that is not going to go away,” said Capt. David Betkey, who oversees the house arrest and work release programs. “We are going to be making judgment calls everyday.”

Betkey agreed, however, that the department could take further steps to make sure inmates stay out of trouble while on house arrest. As it prepares to place more inmates on electronic monitoring, the department is continuing to fine-tune its screening efforts, he said.

“It’s an evolutionary process,” Betkey said. “We’re a lot better off than we were a year ago, and I suspect next year we will be even better.”

A year ago, the department came under sharp criticism when The Times reported that sheriff’s officials had been routinely placing violent and repeat offenders on its work release program without even cursory reviews of their criminal records. Thousands of participants--as many as one in three--had simply skipped out of the program, which requires inmates to show up daily at government work sites, and many proceeded to commit more serious crimes even before their original sentences had ended.

The department responded by ordering an overhaul of the work release program, placing restrictions on the types of offenders who could participate. Officials turned over screening and evaluating of work-release candidates to the county Probation Department, which has a system for weeding out convicted criminals considered too dangerous to be sent back to the streets.

As part of its reform efforts, the Sheriff’s Department decided in July to expand the number of inmates under house arrest, with candidates also being evaluated by the Probation Department. Under the program, inmates are allowed to leave their homes during the day--without being tracked--but must return home at night. Their whereabouts at night are tracked with the electronic monitoring device.

Currently, there are about 430 people out on work release, compared to 670 in July. Meanwhile, there are about 1,500 on house arrest, up from 641 in July.

Sheriff’s officials say they prefer to place convicts on house arrest instead of work release because they have a tighter rein on their whereabouts at night. Since July, about 20% of the inmates placed on work release have violated the terms of the program, compared to 9% placed on electronic monitoring. About two-thirds of the violators in both programs have been returned to custody.

“Work release is the most problematic,” said Lt. Mike Bornman, who is overseeing the efforts. “I think it’s because they are required to pick up trash on the side of the road and they don’t show up. With home confinement, all they have to do is stay home [at night] and stay out of trouble.”

Bornman said that with the expanded electronic monitoring program, sheriff’s officials expect that there will be room for 5,000 to 7,000 convicts at a time serving their full sentences in the county’s jails.

With state-mandated credits, convicts serve no more than two-thirds of the time to which they are sentenced. Convicts now under electronic monitoring serve about 60% of their sentences at home--but beginning on Thursday, convicts both in and out of jail will serve 66% of their sentences.

“I think it shows that we have come a long way from when inmates were serving 25% of their sentences,” he said. “It’s putting things back they way they were.”