San Bernardino County to Lease Jail Space as a ‘Quick Fix’ for Problem of Crowding

With crowded jails forcing law enforcement officials to release about a hundred felons per day, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to lease a private jail in Adelanto that will hold up to 800 inmates.

However, some county officials complained that the lease would not solve a long-term problem: The county is growing so fast that it will need to make room for 3,000 more prisoners by 2010.

“We know by the year 2010 we will need another jail because we are going to be full,” said Deputy Chief Bill Cates, who oversees jails for the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.

The private prison in Adelanto now holds about 500 state prisoners under a contract with the state Department of Corrections.

Under the proposal approved Tuesday, the county would enter into a 10-year lease for a section of the jail -- known as the Victor Valley Medium Community Correctional Facility -- that could hold between 660 and 800 prisoners.

The county will pay about $40 million, plus $3.2 million for prison improvements, according to sheriff’s officials.

The county must also hire about 115 additional workers, including guards, cooks, janitors and nurses, to operate the expansion prison, at a cost of about $15 million per year, according to Cates.

Cates said his department hoped to begin moving prisoners to the facility in October.

Supervisor Gary Ovitt called the lease a “quick fix” but agreed with his colleagues that the added jail space would buy the county a few years while administrators study plans for a jail, possibly in the fast-growing high desert region.

San Bernardino County Sheriff Gary Penrod’s management of the jail is under restrictions imposed under a 1987 lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

San Bernardino County agreed to provide an elevated bed for each prisoner.

But conditions have become so crowded that 150 to 200 inmates sleep on mattresses on the floor each day, Cates said.