Supervisors OK Funds for Jail

In a move intended as a first step toward ending the early release of inmates, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to give the Sheriff’s Department $24.4 million more a year to reopen jail beds.

Sheriff’s officials said the money would enable them to reopen 1,778 beds by September and ease overcrowding. But they said it fell far short of what was needed to end the practice of releasing inmates before they completed their court-ordered sentences.

Sheriff Lee Baca had sought $46.7 million a year for beds. That would have allowed him to reopen nearly 4,000 of the 5,000 beds closed in the last two years.

“We’re not ending the early release program in any respect,” Baca said. “It requires more funding than this.”

Baca said he has had little choice but to close jails and release inmates early, because the department’s budget has been trimmed about $160 million over two years.

Since the early releases began, about 120,000 inmates have been freed early, with most serving 10% of their sentences.

Sheriff’s officials said that the new money would allow them to keep some inmates in custody longer.

Jail staff will review the convictions of all inmates and release them after serving a percentage of their sentences, with more serious criminals staying longer, Baca said.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said Tuesday’s unanimous board vote was an important start to reducing the practice of releasing inmates early.

The board has rarely approved extra multimillion-dollar funding in the middle of a budget year, he said, but the problem was important enough to make an execption.

“This is a matter of public safety, the credibility of the justice system,” Yaroslavsky said. “It doesn’t take long for the community to realize that the sentences are not really what the judge says.”

But Supervisor Mike Antonovich criticized his colleagues for not approving Baca’s request in full. He said the county could take the money from the Department of Health Services, which has a $500-million surplus.

“The sheriff needs resources, and we have resources,” he said. “Once again, the board is sidestepping a very sensitive issue, and that’s public safety.”

But county budget officials have been reluctant to touch that surplus, because the health department is forecast to run a massive deficit in two years.

The increase in Sheriff’s Department funding approved Tuesday will be gradual for the first three years. But $9.1 million will be allotted immediately for more jail staff. Next year, it will be $18.2 million. The third year and each year thereafter, it will be $24.4 million.

Sheriff’s officials said they would use the money to hire enough deputies to reopen portions of the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic and a floor of the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles.

Baca also had asked the board for $14.8 million to move the county’s 1,700 female inmates at the maximum-security jail at Twin Towers to less-restrictive housing at the now nearly empty Century Regional Detention Facility.

That would allow dangerous male inmates at Men’s Central Jail to be moved into the Twin Towers facility.

County supervisors, however, questioned the need for such a move when the Sybil Brand Institute for Women, which housed female inmates before its closure eight years ago for earthquake repairs, continues to sit empty. But the Sheriff’s Department said it needs $42 million in further repairs to make the facility habitable.