Supes to hear report on jail overcrowding

BY COLBY FRAZIER
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

One of the first things Sheriff Bill Brown did after becoming Santa Barbara County’s top cop at the beginning of 2007 was to convene a blue ribbon commission, the goal of which was to probe possible solutions to chronic overcrowding at local jails.
After nearly a year of meetings, the 20-person commission released six recommendations yesterday that will be presented to the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.


At the top of that list is building a new 300-bed jail in North County, which is 500 beds fewer than a private consulting firm said in 1999 that the county would need by the year 2020.
But with a recidivism rate that the commission says is as high as 70 percent, the solution to jail overcrowding, which has plagued the county since the mid 1980s, will require more than a big building with bars on the windows.
“Like everything else in life there needs to be balance,” Brown told the Daily Sound last night. “We can’t build our way out of this.”
While the report emphasizes the need for a new jail to be constructed sooner than later, it places the majority of its weight on the need for prevention, intervention and recovery programs that will focus on social issues that the vast majority of inmates face.
“Key social issues such as mental illness, homelessness, substance abuse and gang involvement directly impact jail overcrowding, but cannot be dealt with by building more jail capacity alone,” the report says.
The second recommendation is for the county to invest in such programs, while the third recommendation is to implement new community corrections programs and expand those already in place.
These include probation and pre-trial release programs that include day reporting centers, a work furlough program, sobering centers and a new satellite-based GPS electronic monitoring system.
The fourth recommendation urges the county to invest $5.8 million per year to fund the second and third recommendations.
The report says the $5.8 million equates to about $11,600 each year per eliminated bed at the jail. While this number appears large, the report says it pales in comparison to the $39,000 each year per jail bed. This costs doesn’t take into account the crime committed, the law enforcement services required to prosecute the suspect or any cost to the victim.
“The BRC contends that crime prevention is more cost effective than enforcement and incarceration,” the report says.
The fifth recommendation urges the county to establish a criminal justice coordinating council that would focus on issues that may reduce jail overcrowding. Such a council would consist of department heads of the court, sheriff, District Attorney, probation and Public Defender and would be modeled after similar groups in other counties.
Accompanying the recommendations is the cumulative impact that chronic jail overcrowding has on the community, which the commission says is a threat to public safety.
On any given day, 1,000 inmates are housed in the county’s jail facilities, the report says. This number is 120 percent of the local jail systems rated capacity. In order to quell this overcrowding, 1,784 inmates were released early in 2007.
Part of the reason for the early releases, the report says, is a court-ordered population capacity limit that local jails have been operating under since the ‘80s.
The report says overcrowding limits the ability of judges to put people in jail for short periods of time, it negatively impacts the probation system and multiplies in severity by creating waiting lists for inmate participation in jail programs designed to reduce recidivism.
“The reality is if we have that many people in our jails we don’t have the ability to provide as many of the prevention programs as we would like,” Brown said. “It’s predominantly a problem of just having too many people confined in a facility.”
Local officials have known for years about the need to construct a new jail, but the costs have always been daunting. According to the report, those costs are currently increasing at a rate of 5 percent, or $4 million per year based on the current $80 million it would take to build a 300-bed facility.
But in the next couple of years, officials have said the cash-strapped county will face one of the largest fiscal crises in its history. The budgetary woes will be worsened, they say, by a $14 billion budget deficit predicted by the state.
The commission’s sixth recommendation deals with possible ways to fund the new jail, and the one that Brown likes most is a pressing possibility of joining hands with the state to build a 500-bed re-entry facility adjacent to the new jail. Brown said if the county allows the Sheriff’s Department to apply for the project, it could pay for as much as 75 percent of construction costs for the jail.
Brown called the possibility of joining with the state a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”
“There’s no guarantee that we’re going to get it, but there’s a strong possibility that we’re going to get it,” he said.
If it were to happen, the report says the two facilities would share common operating costs.
Brown said the inmates who would fill the 500-bed re-entry facility would be people arrested in Santa Barbara County and state prisoners being released into the county. He said each year 800 to 1,000 prison inmates are released into the county, which is more than enough to fill the re-entry facility.
But even with 75 percent of the cost for a jail covered by the state, operating costs for the jail and money needed for prevention programs would continue to mount and the commission doesn’t recommend the county cut any existing programs.
Instead, the commission recommends establishing new revenue streams that could include an increase in the county sales tax, a parcel tax or a mix of the two.
Brown said he is scheduled to give the board a presentation on Feb. 19, at which he will ask for a green light to pursue state funding for the re-entry and jail facilities.
Costs aside, Brown urged the county and community to act fast.
“My hope is the board and the public will be able to see beyond the current fiscal problems we have and unless we address this overcrowding problem now it’s going to get much worse,” he said. “I think the time is to be bold and take the action that will hopefully allow us to get a handle on this perpetual and increasing problem that we face.”