The Acting Sheriff's request for court authority to release Orange County inmates up to five days early appeared to take many by surprise. What has become a routine procedure to manage our nearly constant jail overcrowding caught many individuals off guard, if only because of the current approach we are being forced to pursue -- that of obtaining a temporary court order authorizing the department to release inmates early.

There are several issues related to jail overcrowding that affect us and we believe it is important for all to understand these challenges in the context of jail operations:

·We previously had a federally ordered legal authority to manage inmate population through a system of early releases resulting from the Stuart v. Gates decision. That authority was eliminated when the court order was vacated.

·The Sheriff has no immediate plans to release inmates early from our jails.

·We are seeking this order to allow us the flexibility to manage inmate population as circumstances beyond our control dictate.

·Failure to properly manage inmate population could lead to another federal mandate that could have a more significant negative impact on the community than the early release of certain inmates.

·The Cross Designation Program adds to our overcrowding problem. The ICE agents do not pick up detainees on weekends and this can add an additional 50 inmates to our population on the weekend until they are picked up Monday morning.

·Many events, both planned and unplanned lead to an increase of arrests resulting in spikes to the jail population such as concerts, the OC Fair, demonstrations, civil unrest, natural disasters, etc.

·Title 15 of the California Code of Regulations regulates adult correctional facilities, but does not address issues such as overcrowding.  It does, however,  require attention to safety, security, basic human needs, etc. which can be affected by overcrowding.

·Jail overcrowding leads to increased jail violence as more inmates are housed in smaller spaces.

·Jail overcrowding places an unreasonable burden on our classification system. An alarmingly increasing number of inmates require special handling (separation, protective custody, etc). The additional inmates reduce the number of available single person cells available to house special handling inmates.

·Jail overcrowding creates health and sanitation problems. When the system exceeds 90% capacity we are unable to move inmates out of housing areas to complete routine maintenance.

·Housing juveniles at the Theo Lacy Facility reduces available housing for adult arrestees.

Although we missed the printing deadline for the Orange County Register, the Acting Sheriff spoke to the Register's Tony Saavedra yesterday afternoon -- the online version of his story is here and it is probably significantly different from the story in print. Here's a cut of what's online:

Members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors – the panel that will appoint a new sheriff – said Acting Sheriff Jack Anderson erred by not telling them that he was seeking to release inmates early to ease crowding, but it was unclear how it would affect his candidacy.

Supervisors were diplomatic in their criticism, but stressed that the sheriff needs to keep the board and county prosecutors apprised of such actions.

"He does have the authority, but it's best that all of us know what's going on, especially under the circumstances," said Supervisor Chris Norby. "We all want to be kept in the loop."

Anderson is one of nine finalists vying for the two-year, unfilled term vacated by former Sheriff Mike Carona, who resigned in January under federal indictment on corruption charges. The finalists will be interviewed publicly by the board on May 27.

Supervisor Bill Campbell said he didn't know about Anderson's early-release plan until he read it in the newspaper.

"I was surprised…especially since I met with him on another subject," Campbell said. "Sheriff Anderson has got a lot of balls in the air and made a miscue."

Campbell added that being acting sheriff "can be a plus, but it can also be a minus (for his candidacy). But he has done some good things."

Anderson explained Wednesday that he is not asking to do something new. The department has released thousands of inmates over the last 20 years, under a court order that recently expired. Anderson said he is asking for a new, temporary court order.

"To us, it's just routine stuff," said Anderson, who will now make regular reports to the board and other county officials on the jail crowding problem.

Additionally, the Acting Sheriff explained our early release process to the Board of Supervisors in a memo last evening. Here's the contents:

At this time I have no immediate plans to release inmates early from any of our jail facilities. However, with the downturn in our economy as well as the approaching summer months, we anticipate an increase in our jail population. To ensure there are measures in place to keep our jail population within the maximum legal capacity, and to ensure the safety of inmates and staff, I have applied for a temporary court order allowing the release of Orange County inmates up to five days early.

Historically, in the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, we have routinely taken measures to avoid any violation of Corrections Standards Authority Title 15 with regard to overcrowding. Most recently, we have been releasing inmates up to three days early under the authority pursuant to the court order from Stewart v Gates – an authority that was recently vacated. Because of the Federal Court’s dismissal of Stewart v Gates, we now are seeking this new measure to ensure that our jail population remains within the maximum legal capacity.

A temporary court order for early release, if approved, lasts 30 days. We anticipate that the Sheriff’s Department will now be undertaking this routine request every 30 days to ensure we remain within the law.

We continue to make adjustments in how we manage our inmates so we can avoid having to utilize early release. We should point out that neighboring counties are also being forced to release inmates early:

• The County of San Diego maintains their jail population primarily through the use of restrictive booking measures. When that is not enough they also use 10% early releases of sentenced inmates, plus an additional 14 day early release of certain sentenced female misdemeanants.

• The County of San Bernardino has a Superior Court Order allowing early outs and special releases whenever they reach 90% capacity. The Detention Release Officers (DRO) also release 20-30 felons daily via the “Own Recognizance” process to help reduce crowding.

• The County of Santa Barbara is under a Superior Court Order since 1999 placing a cap on the number of inmates housed in their system.  Inmates are released 7, 14, or 21 days early based upon the following criteria. They must be sentenced, they must serve at least seven days, and their charges must not fall within the 119 exclusionary charges determined by the court issuing the order.

•In the County of Los Angeles, once an inmate has served 70% of their sentence they are released.  There is no court order they are adhering to -- this is how they keep their inmate population manageable.

•The County of Riverside has a court ordered capacity cap of 90% and are on average at 97.5% capacity on a daily basis.  They release inmates early every day to maintain this 90% order.  They also release inmates every Monday – Friday on post arraignment charges to help manage their population.

It has not been our practice in the past to notify the Board of Supervisors or the CEO of our routine managing of jail overcrowding. This is an issue that has been ongoing for over 20 years and one that has been reviewed by previous Grand Juries and reported in local media. In fact, as late as last year, the Grand Jury issued their 2006-2007 State of Orange County Jails and Programs. Their report is sent to the Superior Court and to Board offices and included a reference to ongoing early releases:

Early Release of Inmates
The California Penal Code authorizes the OCSD to release inmates early, primarily to relieve OC jail overcrowding. In 2004, the OCSD released 252 inmates early, 2,057 in 2005, 66 in the last six months of 2006, and 691 from January through March, 2007. In 2006, the released number was smaller because Building B in Theo Lacy was put into service, allowing for an increase of over 576 inmates in the OC jails. Also, in the past year, no inmates charged with kidnapping or involuntary manslaughter have been released early and only 10 inmates charged with transportation/sales of narcotics have been released early.

Many times inmates are released early because their jail space is needed by prisoners awaiting transport to overcrowded California prisons. There were 382 inmates in December, 2005, and 458 inmates in March, 2007, awaiting transport to state prisons. OC receives $77 per day from the state to house state prisoners; however; it costs OC about $100 per day to house a prisoner. State prisons are full, and will not take prisoners from county jails until they have enough beds to do so. In addition, state prisoners who are witnesses in OC trials are transferred to, and temporarily held in, OC jails.

In the future, and in order to ensure the Board and the CEO’s office are aware of routine overcrowding, such reporting will be made to the Board and the CEO through the Office of the Independent Review to ensure transparency to the Board, CEO and the public.

--end--

Finally, the subject of early release of Orange County inmates has been a familiar theme to past Grand Juries. From the 2005-2006 report:

Early Release of Inmates
Early release of inmates is a result of, and sometimes the court mandated answer to, overcrowding and was expressed as a significant concern in the OCSD report to the 1998-1999 Grand Jury. To help understand the potential for problems, this table includes data for 4,016 of the 8,469 inmates released early in 1997:

Thankfully for the safety of Orange County residents, the number of early released inmates significantly declined from 19,340 in 1998 to a low of 252 in 2004. Of some concern is the 2,057 inmates released early in 2005. The OCSD reports this increase was primarily because of inmates awaiting transport to overcrowded California prisons. For example, there were 659 inmates awaiting transport in August, declining to 382 inmates in December as the prisons accepted more inmates.

State prisons are full, and will not take prisoners from county jails until they have enough beds to do so. In addition, prison inmates who are witnesses in Orange County trials are transferred to, and temporarily held in, county jails.
 
The OCSD reports “Currently, the most urgent cause of early release is a shortage of beds for female inmates. Due to a rising female inmate population and requirements to separate male and female inmates, the Department is limited in its ability to house female inmates.”