California Funds New Prisons Despite Prop 47 Passage to Reduce Inmates

California officials voted on Thursday to divert US$500 million to open new jails, replacing jail beds with medical and mental health beds. Criminal justice and civil rights activists protested the decision, which counters the purpose of the popular Proposition 47, passed last year to re-classify low-level felonies to misdemeanors and redirect funds to reduce recidivism.

“Californians didn't vote for Prop 47 so that we could reduce prison populations just to begin building new jails,” said Kim Carter, executive director of Time for Change Foundation, in a press release from Californians United for a Responsible Budget. According to Carter, the Board of State and Community Corrections, responsible for the vote, “should take the money they want to spend on jails and build some affordable housing,” she said, adding that “Reducing recidivism and increasing public safety means people need access to housing and jobs, not jail beds."

Prop. 47 aims to reduce prison populations in a state with severe overcrowding, designating extra funds to programs like "school truancy and dropout prevention, victim services, mental health and drug abuse treatment." At the same meeting, the BSCC began forming a committee to decide the distribution of Prop. 47 funds. Activists against jail expansion submitted their 14 candidates, all formerly incarcerated experts on substance use treatments, reentry programming, housing and mental health treatment. Currently the BSCC is largely made up of opponents of Prop. 47.

Though the BSCC announced that it would fund the new jail projects with funds from another bill, its administrative powers were expanded last month by Governor Jerry Brown. Proponents of Prop. 47 worry that it would look to using their own funds, and community members of the cities in question, spread across 15 countries, fear less funds for local social services.

Other states that passed similar laws have seen crime rates decrease, but a year into passing Prop. 47, crime rates vary across the state, according to a report released by the American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday. While some law enforcement authorities proposed innovative diversion programs, others escalated arrests to account for a perceived rise in petty crime. The report accounted for the differences in the priorities of officers and their departments.

The effects of Prop. 47 are too early to measure, but it is estimated to lower prison costs by US$150 million this fiscal year. The BSCC measure would eliminate 310 jail beds, but it would add 196 new ones, which some worry would not fulfill their definition of mental health treatment. This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:

Via TeleSur http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/California-Funds-New-Prisons-Despite-Law-to-Reduce-Prison-Population-20151112-0039.html

Meet the Community's Prop 47 Executive Steering Committee Members

Yesterday the California Board of State and Community Corrections decided to waste $500 million on new jails, and nominate the chair for the ‪Prop47 ‬Executive Committee. Formerly incarcerated leaders from across the state are standing up for investing in care in the community not, cops and cages.

The Community's Prop 47 Funding Committee includes:
Darris Young & John from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Dayvon Williams from Youth Justice Coalition
Deirdre Wilson from California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Dolores Canales from the Family Unity Network
Dorsey Nunn from Legal Services for Prisoners With Children
George Galvis from Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice
Jayda Rasberry from Dignity and Power Now
Jerry Elster from American Friends Service Committee
Kim Carter from Time for Change Foundation
Rosie Flores from California Partnership
Sammy Nunez from Fathers & Families of San Joaquin
Tracy Jones from Justice Now
Vonya Quarles from Riverside "All of Us or None"

Meet the Community's Prop 47 Executive Steering Committee 14 Proposed Members

The Proposition 47 Executive Steering Committee (ESC) is charged with directing 65% of the state’s savings to fund mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment and diversion programs. Historically, the process by which the agency creates ESC’s has lacked transparency and public engagement, resulting in committees that are often dominated by law enforcement. That’s why the community has put together our proposed slate of ESC members to guide Prop 47 reinvestment. This 14 member panel is comprised entirely of formerly incarcerated leaders from across California who are experts in substance abuse treatment, reentry programing, housing, and mental health treatment. These are experts that California needs to guarantee that savings are used to build the capacity of community-based programs that will support the communities most damaged by mass incarceration.

Via: http://ow.ly/UCthF 

Meet The Companies That Just Promised To Pull 60 Million Dollars From Private Prisons

Three investment groups announced this week that they will divest from the two major private prison corporations that constitute a massive share of America’s prison-industrial complex.

Scopia Capital, DSM, and Amica Mutual Insurance have all pledged to remove their collective investments of about $60,000,000 from the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group — the two prison companies that own 75 percent of the nation’s private prisons. The decision to divest comes on the heels of pressure from Color Of Change, a racial and economic justice advocacy group that ran a campaign asking a total 150 companies to stop investing in the private prison industry.

“In accordance with the principles of the UN Global Compact, with respect to the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, the pension fund has divested from the for-profit prison industry,” DSM President Hugh Welsh said in a Color of Change statement. “Investment in private prisons and support for the industry is financially unsound, and divestment was the right thing to do for our clients, shareholders, and the country as a whole. DSM is committed to good corporate citizenship and operating in a way that contributes to a better world.”

Sixty million dollars is actually a drop in the bucket for GEO and CCA. The groups together earn over three billion dollars annually on private prisons, and even more on immigrant detention centers. But the move signals a growing distrust in the ballooning private prisons industry, which grew by “approximately 1600% between 1990 and 2009,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Other groups have previously reportedly divested, as well, but this may be the largest single successful divestment campaign.

“It’s an important first step,” said Carl Takei, the private prison expert in the ACLU’s National Prison Project. “To the extent that investment firms are committing themselves publicly to divestment, that is a very important step. To the extent that investment firms are deciding that private prisons are a bad investment, that’s even more important.”

CCA lost four of its prison contracts with states last year — and that combined with slowly falling imprisonment rates may actually make private prisons not just morally questionable but financially unstable, Takei pointed out.

“We’ve started to turn the corner on mass incarceration and if that’s something that makes private prisons a bad investment, that’s important,” Takei added. He said that if investment firms chose to divest for ethical reasons, it is “an important first step,” but that “the financial reasons justification would be huge.”

Studies have found that private prisons spend millions on lobbying to send more people to jail for longer periods of time. The facilities are often rife with abuse and neglect, too; accusations against the companies range from wrongful death to bad sanitation and even forcing a woman to give birth in a toilet. They do no favors for states that support them, either; Idaho was one of the places that ended its contract with CCA after the company handed over a $1 million settlement for falsifying staff hours and leaving mandatory monitoring spots unattended.

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department opens expanded jail

ADELANTO >> Three years in the making, the $145.4 million expansion of the High Desert Detention Center adds 1,392 new beds to help relieve jail overcrowding brought about by the realignment of state prisoners.

On Thursday, hundreds rank and file from the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department and officials from across the county gathered at the High Desert Detention Center to celebrate the opening of the expanded jail. The project increases the jail’s footprint by 297,000 square feet to over 8 acres, and includes new medical and dental facilities that eliminate the need for deputies to transport inmates to West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga for those services.

“We’ve constructed a facility that is truly state of the art,” Sheriff John McMahon said during Thursday’s event, where a tour of the jail’s expanded wing followed. “This is a great opportunity for us to keep moving forward in the corrections business.”

A special coating on the walls in the jail’s intake and medical areas reduces the spread of infectious diseases such as staph infections, which are common in jails, prisons, and other communal living facilities.

Not having to drive prisoners to Rancho Cucamonga from the High Desert allows deputies to get back to their patrol duties faster after booking them in Adelanto.

The jail’s expanded wing will open in three phases, as the Sheriff’s Department’s budget allows for staffing of the facility. The first phase will see 222 beds filled within the next couple weeks, and the inmates who get those beds will be those whose cases are being heard in High Desert courtrooms.

Construction on the project began in 2011 and included a new 25,00-square-foot booking building, three housing units, remodeled kitchen and laundry facilities, a new parking lot and fire access roads. A number of unforeseen issues during construction including design flaws and changes to building codes caused the project budget to increase by $25.4 million.

The facility is equipped with a high definition video-surveillance system, and video monitors in each housing unit will allow inmates to visit with family and others. They will no longer be allowed face-to-face visitations because inmate movement is being restricted for security purposes, said the jail’s commander Capt. Jon Marhoefer.

Video visitation has been in place for the past year at smaller jails in Barstow and Joshua Tree and is becoming a trend statewide, Marhoefer said.

“You will see more and more of this,” Marhoefer said, adding that the video visiting system at the High Desert Detention Center is the first time the county has implemented the technology on such a large scale.

As the county’s jails swelled in the 1990s and began reaching full capacity, the need for more became apparent. In 2008, the county applied for, and received, $100 million from the state for the expansion project, initially budgeted at $144 million.

The state funding was made available through the Offender Rehabilitation Services Act of 2007, which freed up $1.2 billion for jail construction projects across California.

Governor Brown Heads to the Inland Empire

Media Advisory: 1/14/2014

Contact: Maribel Nunez, (562) 569-4051 mnunez@communitychange.org

Spanish Speakers Available

***MEDIA ADVISORY***

3:00 PM on January 14, 2014

Location: Riverside County Office of Education 3939 13th Street, Riverside, CA 92501

RIVERSIDE SENIORS, FAMILIES, PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES AND ADVOCATES DEMAND GOVERNOR BROWN BUILD A ROAD OUT OF POVERTY IN CALIFORNIA

Event will focus on sharing the personal stories of how residents are living in poverty and demand that Governor Brown build a road out of California’s poverty crisis.

RIVERSIDE- Over the past week anti-poverty advocates and community members have been holding events across the state in response to the 50^th anniversary of the War on Poverty and Governor Brown’s release of a proposed budget for California. They have been calling on Governor Brown to build a road out of poverty in California by reinvesting in the state’s social safety net in the California budget.

This event in Riverside will coincide with Governor Brown’s Tuesday January 14^th trip to the area to hold meetings with local leaders and will encourage the Governor to confront the reality of California’s poverty crisis that he is ignoring with his 2014-15 proposed budget.

What: Community members and Health and human services advocates will gather for a press event to share personal stories of how this poverty crisis is impacting their lives and call on Governor Brown to build a road out of poverty in California for the 8.7 million Californian’s.

Where: Riverside County Office of Education, 3939 13th Street, Riverside, CA 92501

When: 3:00 PM on January 14, 2014

Speakers: Community stories on the need of restorations to Medi-Cal, childcare, CalWORKs, SSI and IHSS. 

Event Contact: Maribel Nunez, mnunez@communitychange.org (562) 569-4051

# # #

About California Partnership
California Partnership is a statewide coalition of community-based groups, organizing and advocating for the policies and programs that work to reduce and end poverty. Our mission is to organize to build power and leadership among low-income communities by strengthening our voice and collective power to advocate for the policies that affect our lives the most.

For more information, please visit www.California-Partnership.org. 

Best Regards,

Maribel Nunez

California Partnership-Inland Empire Organizer

mnunez@communitychange.org

(562) 569-4051

PUBLIC SAFETY: Inland counties denied millions for jail construction

Riverside and San Bernardino counties each were denied requests this month for $80 million in state grants for jail construction, even though their applications ranked among the highest-scoring based on criteria used to evaluate grant proposals.

The denial hampers efforts to add and improve jail space in this region. In order to comply with federal court orders, each county has released thousands of inmates early since 2011 because there’s no room for them.

Riverside’s 3,906 jail beds in five jails are all filled. And the chronic lack of beds was exacerbated in 2011 with the enactment of public safety realignment. Under realignment, offenders convicted of low-level offenses serve their time in county jails instead of state prisons, a move made to satisfy a court mandate to reduce California’s prison population.

Almost 7,000 Riverside inmates were turned loose early in 2012 to relieve crowding. More than 9,000 have been let go so far this year.

Early release could cause a rise in low-level crimes, such as petty theft and drug possession, said Riverside County Assistant Sheriff Steve Thetford.

“There’s no deterrent effect when you can’t keep people in custody,” he said. “It’s not healthy for public safety.”

San Bernardino’s four jails hold about 6,000 inmates. Since January 2012, more than 6,900 inmates have been released early. An expansion of the Adelanto jail will add another 1,392 beds.

Both counties competed for a slice of $500 million set aside by the state Legislature for jail construction with an emphasis on programs intended to stop inmates from re-offending. In all, Sacramento received $1.3 billion in requests from 36 counties.

Riverside wanted the money to add 582 beds to the 1,520-bed Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Grant dollars also would have paid for more space for vocational, substance abuse and education programs already taking place at Larry Smith.

San Bernardino wanted $80 million to reconfigure and add buildings to the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center, said Cindy Bachman, a sheriff’s spokeswoman. Money also would have gone to improving a road to the jail that is subject to flooding, she said.

A state steering committee graded each request. Among large counties, San Bernardino scored the highest and Riverside ranked third. However, the recommended grant awards went to Orange, San Mateo, Fresno and Sacramento counties.

Robert Oates, a project manager with the state corrections board, said Riverside and San Bernardino did not do enough to show that their respective county supervisors were committed to funding the jail projects that were the focus of their grant requests. Preference goes to shovel-ready projects, he said.

Riverside County officials disagree. In an email, spokesman Ray Smith said the county plans to appeal the grant decision. He contends that the county demonstrated its commitment by expanding the Indio jail and building a new secure youth treatment facility.

A $100 million state grant is paying for the estimated $267 million cost of adding more than 1,200 beds to the 353-bed Indio jail, which will be known as the East County Detention Center. The expansion is supposed to be ready by 2017, but Riverside officials earlier this year were worried that delays in getting state approvals might push back the timeline.

Smith and Thetford said the county will try to find other funding to expand the Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility.

Besides seeking funds elsewhere, Riverside also is considering non-jail alternatives for offenders. These include sending more inmates to state-run fire camps and increased use of electronic monitoring.

Adding onto Smith remains a priority, Thetford said.

“It’s a competitive process. Sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t,” he said. “We’re just going to keep plugging away at it.”

Staff Writer Brian Rokos contributed to this story.

Follow Jeff Horseman on Twitter: @JeffHorseman

Grants rejected

Riverside and San Bernardino counties each were turned down for $80 million in state grants for jail construction.

What’s at stake? The denial hampers efforts to add and improve jail space in this region.

What it means: Lower-level criminals will continue to be released early.

Why does that matter? Early release could cause a rise in low-level crimes, such as petty theft and drug possession.

What’s next? Officials from both counties say they’ll seek funding elsewhere.

via: http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/politics-headlines-index/20131224-public-safety-inland-counties-denied-millions-for-jail-construction.ece

LA Jail System Not Expanding After All As Taft Deal Dies

Prison reform advocates were appalled when Los Angeles County’s top elected officials last month agreed to lease an empty jail about two hours from Downtown LA.

“It’s so disappointing,” Lynne Lyman, the California director for the Drug Policy Alliance, a national advocacy group, said at the time.

Los Angeles County, which includes the city of LA, already had more people behind bars than any other U.S. county or city -- more than Miami and New York City combined. By adding the remote Taft city jail to its network of crowded facilities, the county would be able to lock up about 500 more people, raising its total inmate population as high as 22,000.

But on Tuesday, the county scrapped the plan after a key supporter changed her mind. Now, the county will have to come up with another way to relieve overcrowding in its jails.

County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who joined two of her colleagues in a 3-2 vote for the deal last month, told the Los Angeles Times she reversed her position after learning about an ongoing legal battle over the Taft jail. Until 2011, California used the Taft facility to house state inmates. Last year, Taft sued the state, after the state canceled the contract.

Molina told the LA Times she didn’t want the county to get dragged into the dispute. Molina’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Huffington Post on Wednesday. Molina generally favors jail expansion, and the county is likely to come up with another plan for enlarging its jail system soon.

In the meantime, prison reform advocates said they hope to convince Molina and the other county supervisors to support what they call “alternatives to incarceration.” That includes substance-abuse treatment, transitional housing, and other programs aimed at making sure people don’t go back to jail after they’re freed.

“Most of the people going into the jail system were already disconnected from basic services, such as housing, health services, and employment,” said Lyman. “Services provided after release can help them establish a basic foundation that moves them toward long term stabilization and ensure they do not return to jail.”

LA’s struggle with jail overcrowding goes back to 2011, when Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signed a law that shifted responsibility for many low-level, nonviolent offenders from the state to the counties in an attempt to ease overcrowding in state prisons.

To fund the program, Brown dedicated a portion of state sales tax revenues and vehicle licensing fees to the counties. In the program’s first three years, Los Angeles has received more than $700 million.

Lyman and her colleagues said they had hoped the county would spend that money on substance-abuse treatment programs, prisoner-reentry programs, and other alternatives to incarceration.

So far, however, only about 5 percent of LA’s funds have gone to reentry programs, although an additional 15 percent has gone to the Department of Mental Health and the Department of Public Health for treatment services.

“We are not investing in what we know works,” said Lyman.

In some parts of California, including San Francisco and Santa Clara, counties have invested in a different approach. Two years ago, for example, Santa Clara opened a reentry center that provides services to people coming out of prison or jail.

Ten months after the program began, only 20 percent of released inmates in the county were getting rearrested, compared with about 65 percent before the center opened.

By investing in similar programs, prison reformers said, LA could reduce its jail population by thousands of inmates.

“I walk the jails every month,” said Herman Avilez, the head of California Drug Counseling, a group that provides substance-abuse counseling and other services to low-income people in Pasadena. “Those places are packed with people that shouldn’t be in there.”

via http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/30/la-jails-taft_n_4179372.html

Jail is No Place to Treat Women’s Mental Health Issues

by Karen Shain, Criminal Justice Policy Officer

The first thing I noticed when we walked into the cell block was a woman sitting on top of a metal table. She saw us and slowly crawled off the table to sit on a metal stool. That’s as far as she could go, because she was tethered to the table by a chain.

A guard told us it’s a violation to sit on the table, but they don’t sweat the small stuff in the mental health wing. We weren’t in a mental health facility; this was the Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF), L.A. County’s main women’s jail.

This is where CRDF holds seriously mentally ill women who don’t have the resources to be admitted into private mental health hospitals. The guards explained that the women were always under physical control. They could stay in their single cells (which contained a metal bed and a toilet), be locked into a shower by themselves, could go “outside” (though a roof prevents them from seeing the sky or the sun), or they could sit chained to a table in the “day room.”

As long as a County mental health professional deems them a danger to themselves or others, these women will be held indefinitely.  The only way out is for them to get better, but how can they get better under these circumstances?

Mental illness is not a crime; it is a disease. CRDF does not treat women with this disease. It only pushes them further inward, back into their demons. What I witnessed was torture. Is that the best we can do?

I left the mental health wing of CRDF with an extremely heavy heart. But I also realized that if the Sheriff’s Department showed us this mental health wing – something they can’t be proud of – they must be looking for advocates to help them fund a new jail with improved conditions for women.

But even the goal of “improved” conditions misses the point.  Treatment, not incarceration, is the solution for most women, and effective treatment cannot happen under duress.
Nearly one out of every three women (31 percent) in county jails is there because of mental illness, which is double the percentage for men. As the nation and California dismantled mental health facilities and funding over the decades, our jails and prisons have become the largest mental institutions in the country. Believe it or not, they are also the largest geriatric facilities and homeless shelters.

Building more jails will not help these women or men, nor will it stop cycles of crime that jeopardize our neighborhoods and our personal safety because it is well-known that persons with mental illness who are put in jail have much higher rates of recidivism than those who receive mental health treatment in the community. Managing mentally ill people in our prisons and jails is also far more expensive than providing treatment in the community – treatment which is also much better than what is provided in jail.

This is not only about Los Angeles; it’s a national problem. But Los Angeles has the opportunity to do something better.

The LA Board of Supervisors is at a crossroads. They have several proposals before them to construct both a new women’s and mental health jail. The construction cost? Between $1.4-$1.6 billion, which does notinclude operating expenses, such as the almost $250 per day it costs to house and treat a woman with mental illness in jail. What if we tried something different—and better? Let’s redirect these billion plus dollars and invest instead in comprehensive and humane mental health and substance abuse treatment. As the Affordable Care Act (ACA), our national health reform law, is implemented in coming months, we have an opportunity to expand mental health and substance abuse access and treatment. Under ACA people who are financially eligible will be able to get mental health and substance abuse treatment at very little cost to California, but ONLY if they are not in jail.

California’s residents who bear the double burden of being impoverished and mentally ill should not find that their only option for mental health treatment is available if they fall into the criminal justice system. Treating them in the community would be the real way to improve their lives and those of their families and community, not putting them in a new and costly jail.

via http://womensfoundationofcalifornia.org/2013/10/18/jail-is-no-place-to-treat-womens-mental-health-issues/

RIVERSIDE COUNTY: Jail spending will eat up future money

Adding jail beds and boosting deputy patrols in Riverside County could eat up projected gains in revenue over the next few years, leaving little or nothing to restore code enforcement, animal control and other departments hit hard by the economic downturn.

Jail expansions could potentially max out the county’s self-imposed limit on debt payments by 2020, according to a recent analysis. Even then, the county likely can’t erase its jail bed shortage without going well beyond the limit.

The Board of Supervisors last month held a workshop on budget-related matters, including a five-year spending plan for jails and a plan to hire more deputies for unincorporated areas. The board voted to hire a consultant to further assess the jail crunch, and supervisors want a closer look at non-jail options, such as road crews and fire camps for low-level offenders.

After losing $215 million in tax revenue since 2007, county finances are starting to modestly perk up, and property tax revenue is expected to grow as the real estate market rebounds. But as more money comes in, the county faces massive new spending obligations, jails being the largest.

Jail crowding has been a problem for years. Since 2000, the county’s population grew 45 percent while the number of jail beds grew just 31 percent, according to a county staff report. A long-standing federal court order requires the county to release inmates early when there aren’t enough beds.

Under court pressure to shrink California’s prison population and relieve crowding, state lawmakers in 2011 passed public safety realignment, which shifted to counties the responsibility for inmates convicted of nonviolent, nonserious and non-high risk sexual offenses. Those offenders are now sent to jails instead of state prison.

The county’s five jails, which have 3,906 beds, filled up in January 2012. Almost 7,000 inmates got early releases in 2012, and the number is expected to exceed 9,000 by the end of this year. Roughly 18 percent of jail inmates – 693 – were there due to realignment as of Aug. 31, county staff said.

SKEWED PRIORITIES?

“Because of what the state has done, we will need to distort what would otherwise be our county priorities in order to do what must be done, which is to build jails to house people that used to be in prison,” county Chief Financial Officer Ed Corser told supervisors during the Sept. 23 workshop.

To curtail early releases, the county plans to add more than 1,200 beds to the 353-bed Indio jail by 2017. The $267 million project – a state grant covers $100 million – doesn’t include the cost of moving county offices to accommodate the expansion.

The county is applying for another $80 million in state funding to add as many as 582 beds to the 1,520-bed Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Officials see potential there for a total of 1,600 additional beds.

Grants don’t cover the cost of running bigger jails. The new Indio jail, called the East County Detention Center, will require 406 sheriff’s personnel to be hired at a cost of $37.9 million annually by 2017, according to Corser’s figures.

In all, supervisors have committed to $97.5 million in new, annual public safety expenses by 2017, Corser’s numbers show. He expects revenue growth to cover the new costs.

But the $97.5 million doesn’t include higher labor costs that could come when the sheriffs’ union contract expires in 2016.

And it doesn’t address potential new funding requests from the district attorney’s office, the public defender, the Fire Department and probation. The county also is trying to boost its rainy day fund from $140 million, an amount described by one bond rating agency as “barely satisfactory,” Corser said.

Altogether, those additional requests could add up to $118 million by 2017, Corser said. Of that, $91.3 million would have to be found somewhere.

Prop. 172 passed in 1993 created a special public safety sales tax. But Corser said any growth in Prop. 172 revenue should go to the Indio expansion.

NOT ENOUGH

The Sheriff’s Department estimates the county needs 4,000 new jail beds now and 10,000 by 2028. Adding to Indio and Larry Smith would still leave the county short of that long-term goal.

Plans for a “hub jail” outside Palm Springs – 2,000 beds in phase one, 7,200 at buildout – have been discussed for years, and the county spent more than $22 million preparing for the project. But supervisors shelved the hub jail in 2011 amid cost concerns and opposition from Coachella Valley residents, who worried a jail seen from Interstate 10 would hurt the area’s image.

Even if supervisors revived the hub jail, a county staff analysis casts doubt on the ability to pay for it in the short term.

County policy dictates that no more than 7 percent of general fund spending go to paying off construction debt, a ratio meant to appease rating agencies that grade the county’s credit-worthiness. Adding 1,600 beds to Larry Smith brings the county to that threshold by 2020, the analysis shows.

The threshold would be shattered by 2025 if the county tries to add 10,000 beds now, according to the analysis. The Indio jail and other approved projects will double the county’s annual debt payments to $40 million by 2016, according to the analysis.

Deputy County Executive Officer Christopher Hans, who presented the analysis to supervisors, noted the projections are less accurate the farther they go out.

NOTHING BUT JAILS?

But assuming the numbers are true, there’s practically no room in the general fund – the county’s main piggy bank – for non-jail construction projects.

In the past, the county could use redevelopment money to pay for new infrastructure. But that option vanished in 2011 when the courts upheld the abolishment of California redevelopment agencies.

The Riverside County Transportation Commission, a multi-jurisdictional agency, does have its own funding for transportation infrastructure. It’s also possible to pay for construction through developer impact fees, state and federal money and other sources.

Right now, 20 percent of the county’s $590 million in discretionary general fund revenue goes to corrections. Jail spending would make up more than 40 percent if 1,600 beds are added to Larry Smith and more than 80 percent if a 6,000-bed jail is also built.

MORE DEPUTIES

The five supervisors committed in April to improving the ratio of deputies to residents in the county’s unincorporated areas, which aren’t part of cities. The ratio stood at 1.2 deputies per 1,000 residents before the recession and fell to 0.75 per 1,000 in 2012. It should rise to 1 per 1,000 by the end of 2013.

To reach 1.2 per 1,000, Corser said the sheriff would have to add 148 deputies by 2018 at an annual cost of $21.4 million. Actual costs could vary depending on how long it takes to screen and train new hires.

During the workshop, Supervisor John Tavaglione questioned whether the 1.2 ratio is feasible. During tough times in prior years, budgets for the animal control and code enforcement departments were slashed, and supervisors had to restore them, he said.

“Now we’ve obliterated those departments,” Tavaglione said. “And we’re going to have to rebuild them again.”

Public safety departments have seen their budgets cut 3 percent in recent years, but other departments took hits of at least 15 to 19 percent, Corser said. Factoring in non-county funding, code enforcement and animal control budgets since 2007 have dropped 33 and 18 percent, respectively.

In September 2007, supervisors beefed up code enforcement staffing in the unincorporated areas to 90 officers and supervising staff, up from 40 the year before. The number is 44 now.

Tavaglione stressed he supports the Sheriff’s Department and said he would love to see a 1.2 ratio.

However, “To think that we can just, for the next five years, focus every single dollar that we have on only the Sheriff’s Department and nothing else … that we’re not going to be able to provide the other services necessary in our communities to support, that go along with sheriff … it’s ridiculous,” he said.

Supervisor Marion Ashley said without a safe environment, the county won’t realize the economic growth it is expecting.

PRICE FOR SAFETY

Assistant District Attorney Jeff Van Wagenen said the district attorney’s office agrees jail beds are the top priority.

However, he said more prosecutors will be needed as more deputies arrest lawbreakers. Van Wagenen estimates the office is down 15 to 20 lawyers compared to four years ago. In recent years, the office has sought grants and outside funding to offset expenses, he added.

The county also is bracing for possible holes in this year’s budget. The Sheriff’s Department could have a $20 million shortfall and Riverside County Regional Medical Center is looking at a $50 million gap when the fiscal year ends next June, Corser said.

Assistant Sheriff Steve Thetford said his department appreciates the costs associated with expanding jails and hiring more deputies.

“There’s a price for public safety,” he said.

via http://www.pe.com/local-news/politics/jeff-horseman-headlines/20131012-riverside-county-jail-spending-will-eat-up-future-money.ece

San Bernardino County sheriff gets approval to seek grant for jail upgrades

The San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday gave the Sheriff’s Department the green light to apply for an $80 million grant from the state to construct new housing units at the Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center in Devore.

The Sheriff’s Department plans to demolish two housing units at the 53-year-old jail and replace them with three new housing units comprising 512 beds and a visitors’ center. They will accommodate an intensive 18-month education/counseling program to help prepare inmates for life on the outside once they are released from custody.

Design and planning for the $109.9 million project is expected to span throughout 2014, and construction should last three years, from May 2015 to May 2018, according to the grant proposal presented to supervisors.

The Glen Helen Rehabilitation Center, built in 1960 as a maximum security work camp, is the oldest jail in the county and one of nine detention facilities. To accommodate the influx of inmates under Public Safety Realignment, the county has been seeking funding to assist in upgrades at its existing jails and construction of the Adelanto Detention Center, currently under way.

In June 2012, SB 1022 became law. It allowed the state to set aside a $500 million pot for counties to dip into, via application, to assist in jail construction and upgrades necessitated by realignment. The Sheriff’s Department is requesting the $80 million from the pot.

The county will chip in $26 million-plus for the project and another $3.9 million will come from in-kind contributions.

Glen Helen is not the only project under way in the county to increase bed space and improve efficiency. Projects are also under way to expand the Adelanto Detention Center by more than 1,000 beds and to bring some housing units at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Since awarding the Adelanto Detention Center construction contract in December 2010, there have been 20 amendments and change orders to the contract. Initially projected by the county to cost $144 million to build, bids for the project subsequently came in at $120 million, so the budget was adjusted to reflect that amount, county spokesman David Wert said.

Unforeseen glitches in the smoke detection and sprinkler system and other project snafus, however, caused costs to climb, and now the budget is back to $144 million and is not expected to surpass that, Wert said.

The Board of Supervisors also approved Tuesday increasing the budget for the West Valley Detention Center project by $2.3 million, bringing the cost from $2 million to $4.3 million.

The project will bring eight of 15 housing units at the jail into ADA compliance and address accessibility issues in specific inmate cells, showers, day rooms and recreation yards, according to a report prepared for county supervisors.

via http://www.sbsun.com/general-news/20131008/san-bernardino-county-sheriff-gets-approval-to-seek-grant-for-jail-upgrades

RIVERSIDE COUNTY: Supervisors approve jail expansion plan

Riverside County supervisors have endorsed a strategy that could double the size of three existing jails and restart planning for a Palm Springs-area mega-jail.

The strategy offered by supervisors Marion Ashley and Jeff Stone is meant to give county staff a road map for how the Board of Supervisors wants jail expansions to proceed.

“We really need to go to the whip on the jails situation,” Ashley told his colleagues at a recent meeting. “It’s good for our economy to protect our people. It’s good for our safety and our quality of life.”

The strategy is short on specifics, including construction timetables and how the county will pay for the added jail space. And Sheriff Stan Sniff contends that some parts of the strategy may be unfeasible.

On June 4, the board passed the strategy 4-0. Supervisor John Tavaglione was absent while recovering from a biceps injury.

Jail capacity is one of the top challenges facing supervisors.

Besides needing to keep pace with population growth, the county’s 3,906-bed, five-jail system is under tremendous strain following the start of state public safety realignment, which shifted responsibility for low-level offenders from the state to counties. Under realignment, people convicted of nonviolent, nonserious and nonsexual crimes serve their sentences in county jail instead of state prison.

County jails filled up after realignment started in October 2011 and last year, the county released almost 7,000 prisoners early to comply with a federal court order to ease crowding. Even more early releases are expected this year.

The county jail system wasn’t designed to handle the medical, recreation and other needs of inmates serving multi-year sentences, and the county faces a class-action lawsuit alleging inadequate inmate health care.

The county already is taking steps to add jail beds. Planning is underway to add more than 1,200 beds to the 353-bed Indio jail at a cost of $237 million, $100 million of which is covered by a state grant. The expansion is expected to be open by 2017.

The Sheriff’s Department also is seeking an $80 million state grant to add as many as 380 beds to the 1,520-bed Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility in Banning. Grant money also would pay for more room to run alternative sentencing programs.

And the county is sending jail inmates to fire camps and using electronic-monitoring ankle bracelets so defendants awaiting trial can stay at home instead of jail.

Still, expanding Indio and Banning won’t solve the jail-bed shortage, officials contend. The Sheriff’s Department has said the county will need 4,000 more beds by 2020 and 13,500 beds by 2050, according to Stone and Ashley.

By comparison, Los Angeles County currently has 23,600 jail beds. Los Angeles County has just under 10 million residents while Riverside County’s population is 2.2 million.

The supervisors’ strategy suggests goals for adding beds to Larry Smith, the Robert Presley Detention Center in downtown Riverside and the Southwest Detention Center in French Valley.

The strategy sees room for another 1,600 beds at Larry Smith, 1,500 to 3,000 beds at Southwest and 900 beds at Robert Presley. Combined with what’s coming to Indio, these potential expansions could add 5,250 to 6,750 beds.

Sniff said his department is happy to look at ways to add jail beds. But he said expanding Robert Presley and Southwest isn’t cost-effective.

“Unless there’s something new that’s changed on it, I’m really doubtful that those are panning out,” Sniff said.

A team led by Assistant County Executive Officer George Johnson will flesh out a plan to expand the jails using the supervisors’ strategy. The team, which could deliver a report to supervisors in three to six months, will include representatives from the sheriff’s office, probation and mental health departments.

The strategy also touches on the Mid-County Detention Center, once planned for a site off Interstate 10 in Whitewater east of Palm Springs. The county spent $22 million on studies and land acquisitions for the jail and the original plan called for the facility to have as many as 7,200 beds at full build-out.

The project faced opposition from Palm Springs-area residents who said its visible freeway location could hurt tourism. Supervisor John Benoit, who represents the county’s desert communities, led the push to shelve the project in 2011, saying the county couldn’t afford it.

The strategy doesn’t specify where the mid-county jail should go. Instead, it calls for planning to continue should state or federal funding become available one day.

New jails such as mid-county take years of planning, Ashley said. “We can’t just sit around and say ‘Oh, we have to go to work on Mid-County now,’” he said.

Sniff has said the county will eventually have to look at building a mid-county jail.

Follow Jeff Horseman on Twitter: @JeffHorseman

via PE.com