Sheriff Wins Kudos in His Rookie Year

While yet to fully deliver on the goals he set out when he took office a year ago, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona is winning measured praise for making the department more accessible to the public and bringing new energy to some vexing law enforcement problems.

Even former critics say Carona, the county’s first new sheriff in 24 years, has pushed the department to devote more attention to the concerns of field deputies as well as ethnic groups and others.

He is also credited with reducing the number of inmates released from jail before their sentences are up, creating a new organizational structure that gives commanders in substations more autonomy, and developing plans to treat inmates with substance-abuse problems.

Despite these achievements, Carona remains mired in a variety of problems and has not escaped his share of controversy. Jail overcrowding is worse than ever, and he has yet to agree on a long-promised site for a new detention facility.

Taxpayers are still waiting for a promised audit of department operations, a situation the sheriff blames on inaction by county administrators. And Carona has backed away from a pledge to make the coroner’s office independent, saying the change is not necessary.

Carona has made good on a promise to issue more concealed-gun permits than his predecessor, Brad Gates. But the move drew a rare rebuke from a fellow police chief, who said more concealed weapons makes the streets more dangerous for officers. The sheriff also faced difficult questions over his top management appointment of a wealthy campaign supporter whose auction business was the subject of state investigation.

“He’s stubbed his toe a few times,” said George P. Wright, chairman of Santa Ana College’s criminal justice department. “But overall, I’d give him a pretty good rating.”

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In an interview, Carona listed his major achievements of the year as reducing early releases from jail, increasing his accessibility to outsiders and transforming management practices. But at the top, he reserved his dealings with deputies.

“Developing a working relationship with the men and women of this organization--to me, that’s my greatest achievement,” he said.

After winning the election in November 1998, he quickly met with deputies and promised to listen to their concerns. They asked for greater firepower on the streets; he gave them more assault weapons. They asked for flexible work schedules; he began working on an experimental schedule.

“[Carona] has been open, accessible. He has been willing to consider the desires and needs of the deputies to an extent that we’ve never enjoyed before,” said Robert J. MacLeod, general manager of the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.

It’s a turnaround from the election, when many deputies supported Carona’s opponent, Santa Ana Police Chief Paul Walters. During the campaign, Gates charged that Carona was unfit to be sheriff, saying the former county marshal didn’t have enough law enforcement experience.

Several deputies said that Carona has encouraged staff to take risks, and the result has been a flurry of new proposals.

Some have backfired, as with the abandoned plan to add Carona’s name to all patrol cars. But others have proven effective in cementing relations with the community, supporters say, such as training chaplains to help teach crime safety to parishioners.

“It’s perfectly acceptable to make a mistake, as long as it’s not unethical or illegal,” Carona said. “Doing nothing, and sitting back and being so paralyzed that you’re afraid of people saying you’re an idiot, that’s unacceptable to me.”

The sheriff has set up a citizens advisory committee to hear the concerns of groups traditionally in conflict with law enforcement: the American Civil Liberties Union, community activists and representatives of the county’s ethnic minority communities. Law enforcement, Carona maintains, usually only seeks community advice during crises. He said he is determined not to make the same mistake.

“There’s always that suspicion: Why is law enforcement coming to us now? We’re asking them ahead of time,” he said.

Some community activists said they have detected a change.

“It’s the difference between night and day,” said Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County, a Latino advocacy group.

In the coming year, Carona promised that he will tackle problems left on the back burner. A 64-bed drug-treatment facility for jail inmates is scheduled to open in March. And he will forge ahead with conducting extensive department audits.

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But his top priority, he said, will be to relieve the county’s chronic jail bed crunch. By March, he intends to propose a new jail site. He pledged to examine alternative ways to house inmates. He also promised to find an acceptable resolution for expansion plans at the James A. Musick Branch Jail that will satisfy South County residents, and to reduce early releases of inmates to zero.

“We’ll get to solving the jail overcrowding in the first four years,” he said. “And my definition of that is that we’ll have no early releases.”