County Seeks Funds to Add Beds for Juvenile Offenders

Orange County’s Probation Department, badly in need of more beds for juveniles, won supervisors’ approval Tuesday to seek $18 million in federal funds to build three 60-bed facilities in Orange and demolish several buildings built in the 1950s.

Stephanie W. Lewis, chief probation officer, said the department is handling short-term overcrowding by leasing space for juvenile offenders at Santa Ana Jail and the County Jail.

“We need to keep up with youth bed needs,” Lewis said. “At Juvenile Hall, we have four units that were original structures built in 1957. Under the proposal, those structures, which house 80 beds, will be razed and in their place we will get 180 new beds.”

Repairing the original structures is no longer cost-effective, Lewis said.

The proposal comes as the department is advancing controversial plans to build a 60-bed youth facility called Rancho Potrero Leadership Academy at the Joplin youth camp in Trabuco Canyon.

Canyon residents have sued the department, alleging that the project violates state environmental guidelines. The department denies the allegations.

Probation officials say facilities such as Joplin and Juvenile Hall are overcrowded and won’t meet the projected need.

They estimate that 726 “secure” beds will be needed in a locked, guarded facility such as Juvenile Hall by 2005; it has 538 beds now. They say they will need 605 “nonsecure” beds, such as those at Joplin, by 2005. There are 314 now.

Lewis said chances are good that federal funds, administered by the state Board of Corrections in Sacramento, will be approved. The county would then pay 25%, or about $5.7 million, in matching funds, which would bring the project’s total to about $24 million, Lewis said.

The proposal calls for demolishing four of the original 20-bed dorms and building three, 60-bed facilities, classrooms and secure parking facilities for staff.

The department now leases about 168 juvenile beds at three locations in Santa Ana: the County Jail, Santa Ana’s new jail facility and Santa Ana’s former jail, which the Probation Department considers its juvenile annex.

At Santa Ana Jail, the department has a 64-bed wing for juveniles remanded to adult court. There is also a 64-bed unit at the County Jail for 18-year-old juveniles on probation or serving a juvenile sentence.

The so-called annex is a 40-bed facility that serves as a transitional lockup for juveniles going from Juvenile Hall into the juvenile area at the Santa Ana Jail.