Sheriff Slashes O.C.’s Projected Jail Needs

Citing the plunging crime rate, Sheriff Mike Carona on Tuesday scaled back the projected number of new beds Orange County’s overcrowded jail system will require over the next 25 years and said a compromise plan for expanding an Irvine facility would meet those demands.

Carona cited a new Sheriff’s Department forecast suggesting that crime in Orange County--which saw record declines over the last seven years to the lowest level since the 1970s--will continue dropping for at least the next three to five years.

Felony arrests of juveniles are also running well below projections, he said, further reducing the need for additional beds.

Carona now believes the county will need only about 4,650 new jail beds by 2025--less than half the 10,000 that his predecessor, Brad Gates, said was required.

Carona wants to fill the gap with a 1,300-bed expansion of the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange and a far more controversial 3,300-bed addition to the James A. Musick Branch Jail in Irvine.

The sheriff’s announcement came the same day he urged the Board of Supervisors to support the Musick proposal, a compromise reached over the last few weeks with neighboring communities. The compromise calls for a far smaller jail than the 7,500-bed maximum-security facility that county had already approved and prohibits any maximum-security beds.

The shift away from high-security cells could help Carona clear several political and financial hurdles. Neighboring residents prefer low-security inmates at Musick, and the costs of building a minimum-security jail cells run almost 50% less than a maximum-security cells.

Carona’s plan caps the Irvine jail to 4,600 minimum- to medium-security inmates, to be phased in over the next 15 years. The jail now has 1,256 beds. In return, Irvine and Lake Forest have agreed to drop their lawsuit attempting to block expansion plans.

After a lengthy discussion with the sheriff in closed session Tuesday, supervisors agreed to create a committee made up of local police chiefs and officials to evaluate the compromise. Smith said the board wants to check Carona’s figures before giving final approval.

“We want this [settlement] to solve the jail problems through the year 2025,” Smith said. “We want no more additional maximum[-security] beds elsewhere.”

Sheriff, Supervisors Tired of Eternal Issue

The county has labored for more than two decades under a federal court order to reduce its chronic jail space crunch. Hundreds of thousands of inmates have been released early over the last decade to make room for incoming offenders, and officials recently blamed the tight conditions for jailhouse riots and attacks on deputies.

“I run the most overcrowded jail in America,” Carona complained. “I’m tired of having jail overcrowding. I’m tired of being under the threat of a federal [court order]. It’s time we had jail beds built.”

“You don’t want to overbuild but you also don’t want to underbuild,” he said.

Critics, including Smith, question whether Carona’s compromise goes far enough to solve the county’s jail overcrowding problem. Others warned that crime projections could just as easily increase as decrease in the future.

“A lot of [the latest numbers are] predicated on the crime rate going or staying down, and that may or may not happen,” said George P. Wright, chairman of the criminal justice department at Santa Ana College. “If the economy turns sour, and a few other things go wrong, he could get caught short.”

Carona acknowledged that the latest projections--like earlier ones--could radically shift if crime starts to rise. With that in mind, he said he has urged supervisors to keep updating the forecasts every year to make sure the county’s target is realistic. Meanwhile, he and a group of South County officials plan to push hard to find a new site to build a jail.

But if current forecasts hold up, Carona said the county could stop the practice of early releases and satisfy the requirements of the court order.

Carona entered office in 1999 and immediately expressed skepticism at the large number of jail beds the Sheriff’s Department said it would need in the future. A 1998 Orange County Grand Jury report reached a similar conclusion, questioning whether Gates’ proposed 6,000-bed expansion of Musick was really needed.

Carona first said he believed the number should be halved, but now believes even fewer beds will be needed.

And now the additions don’t even have to be maximum-security beds, Carona said, noting that the department can get by on the current number of those cells at facilities in Santa Ana and Orange.

“The question is: What beds do we need more of? I can simply tell you that there is a deep need for [minimum- and medium-security] beds,” he said in an interview. “Those represent about 85% of our jail population.”

Despite concern from some supervisors that the deal does not go far enough, many law enforcement officials voiced their support for the compromise. Any agreement that would add thousands of jail beds, they argued, is a benefit to public safety.

Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas said he will lobby supervisors to approve the deal, adding that he hopes it will end the practice of releasing sentenced inmates early.

“There’s nothing more frustrating than giving someone 90 days and have them walk out the door of the courthouse a couple of weeks later,” Rackauckas, a former Superior Court judge, said. “We need to seize this [agreement].”

Bob MacLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs, agreed.

“It may well be the beginning of the solution to Orange County’s jail overcrowding issue,” he said, “and that’s more than we have today.”

Supervisors are scrambling to review and vote on the settlement by March 7, the election date for Measure F. If approved by voters, the measure would require a two-thirds vote before the county could build new large jails, hazardous-waste landfills or airports near homes.

“The window of opportunity to solve this [Musick expansion] is now,” said Supervisor Todd Spitzer.

Times staff writer Jean O. Pasco contributed to this report.

* For more information about the airport debate, click onto The Times’ newly expanded Web site at https://www.latimes.com/eltoro. The site includes a comprehensive Measure F voter guide, special research sections, interactive bulletin boards, an insider column and the latest news.

* BAD TIMING FOR AIRPORT: Carona’s announcement undercuts a key argument of airport backers fighting Measure F. B1

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The Law of Supply and Demand

A Sheriff’s Department forecast suggests that crime in Orange County will continue to drop for the next three to five years, dramatically reducing the number of new beds needed in the overcrowded jail system. Here is a look a recent crime trends.

Orange County Reported Crimes

1989

Total*: 138,885

Property: 49,480

Violent: 11,197

*

1998

Total*: 83,388

Property: 26,665

Violent: 9,497

Jail Expansion Proposals

Sheriff Mike Carona says the county will need a total of 4,654 jail beds by 2025. Here’s how he plans to reach the goal:

*--*

Current 2025 maximum Theo Lacy Jail (Orange) 1,650 2,960 James A. Musick Jail (Irvine) 1,256 4,600 Men’s Central Jail (Santa Ana) 1,315 1,315 Women’s Jail (Santa Ana) 335 335 Intake Release Center (Santa Ana) 784 784

*--*

* Total crime includes property and violent crimes in addition to other crimes

Source: California Department of Justice; Sheriff’s Department