Special Report: A Look At Local Jails by Bill Flores

Housing as many as 1,500 inmates, both males and females, in a facility approved for 850, the Central Jail in downtown San Diego was consistently overcrowded with all the problems a packed population brings.

Female inmates were housed in a special area of the second floor. Although cramped for space, their jail did not come close to the overcrowding problem on the male side.

There, inmates were constantly required to sleep on the floor due to a lack of bunks. Medical services were stressed and sparse. Food services were stretched to the limit.

In 1977, the Las Colinas Detention Facility opened in Santee, obtained from the county Probation Department and designated as a women's jail. Local law enforcement officers from all over the county would book their female prisoners into this jail.

Removing the women from the Central Jail offered some relief to the crowded conditions there, but much more had to be done.

At about this same time, an important case called Hudler v. Duffy was being decided. This lawsuit addressed overcrowding and associated difficulties in the Central jail.

The settlement called for more staff, more services and more privileges for inmates. It also placed the county on notice that jail conditions violated several constitutional rights of unconvicted and unsentenced prisoners, and corrective action must be taken.

Late in 1978, the Vista Detention Facility was opened, providing jail services to North County law enforcement agencies.

Today, nearly two decades after Hudler, San Diego Sheriffs Office operates a large, dynamic system of jail facilities and support services, more extensive and complex than many are aware.

Today's "county jail" is a network of seven facilities located throughout San Diego County.

Built in three phases beginning in 1978, VDF is much more modern than CDF in equipment and in layout. Housing modules and individual cells are operated electronically by a deputy stationed where he can see throughout the module CDF, by contrast, has a rectangular design offering severely restricted visibility, and has cells that require manual door operation.

Three of them are designated "booking" facilities-jails designed to receive inmates directly from the field. The other four are mainly housing units.

The three booking jails are the Central Detention Facility (CDF), the Vista Detention Facility (VDF) and the Las Colinas Detention Facility (LCDF).

All three facilities are maximum security and house the most dangerous and violent inmates, as well as new arrivals. The new arrivals, however, are not, as a general rule, mixed with more serious offenders until they, themselves, are classified as such during a post-booking evaluation.

Last year, more than 61,000 men were booked at the downtown San Diego jail. This is the oldest facility in the system, yet remains the most active. The average daily population is approximately 750, but that number is very fluid because inmates are coming and going 24 hours a day.

VDF books primarily those arrests occurring in the North County Judicial District. Last year, VDF booked more than 27,500 people. Built with two booking and receiving areas, VDF houses both males and females. Males and females are segregated upon arrival and, of course, housed in different areas. The average daily house count is just under 1,000.

Since the Vista jail is larger than the old facility downtown jail, it can accept inmate transfers from CDF. Vista is also equipped with special medical isolation cells, which allows the jail to accept inmates with medical conditions requiring segregation.

For example, an inmate may be sent to Vista if he is diagnosed with TB and must be placed in a negative pressure isolation cell, which CDF does not have.

VDF is a maximum security facility and can house any classification level of inmate.

	More than half the inmates in San Diego jails are between the ages of 18 and 29. Women comprise 13%.
	70% tested positive for drugs at booking.
	34% are high-risk, violent inmates. 35% are classified as medium security inmates, and 30% are low risk, minimum security prisoners.
	58% are unsentenced prisoners; 78% are facing pending felony charges and 33% on drug-related charges.
	38% are hispanic, 34% white, 24% black and 4% other.
	Only 4% are misdemeanant pre-trial inmates.
	Average sentenced inmate jail stay is 25 days.
	While 60% of jail prisoners are unsentenced and cannot be forced to work or attend programs, most do. The jail uses more than 700 inmate workers, paying each 50 cents a day for a total cost of $150,000 a year. For this, the inmates provide labor savings to the county conservatively estimated at $10 million.
	Services provided include facility maintenance, laundry service, janitorial chores, food service, landscaping, clothing manufacture and repair, mattress manufacturing and repair, print shop work, vehicle washing, construction trades, and serving on work crews at county facilities.

Originally designed as a women's facility, Las Colinas has not always been so. Once used as a girls' residential school, as a jail it housed only women.

Then, in the 1980s, the jail underwent some renovation and male inmates were housed there to relieve overcrowding at other facilities, including the infamous "Styrofoam Jail" in El Cajon, which is no longer in use.

Presently, Las Colinas operates exclusively as a female booking jail. It has a rated capacity of just under 480 inmates, and an average daily population last year of 520. It processed more than 13,000 bookings in 1996.

There are four non-booking facilities in the system, although "non-booking" is a bit of a misnomer as some 10,000 persons were booked into three of them last year. Those bookings came directly from the courts, as opposed to field arrests.

Two are medium security jails and two are maximum. The max facilities are the George Bailey Detention Facility (GBDF) and the South Bay Detention Facility (SBDF). The medium security jails are the East Mesa Detention Facility (EMDF) and the Descanso Detention Facility (DDF).

The South Bay jail is in the county complex located in the City of Chula Vista, while DDF is out in the East County near the town of Descanso.

Rated at just under 1,700 inmates, this unique facility regularly stays at capacity. Not only does its size and resultant staffing put it in a league of its own, but its housing of "specialty inmates" means it has special requirements.

For example, the Sheriffs Office provides a small section within the jail designated as the Psychiatric Security Unit. This unit is run by staff from the county's Mental Health Department so, even while they are within a secure sheriffs facilities, PSU inmates are also patients during their mental health treatments.

This jail also contains the largest medical unit, enabling sheriffs medical staff to treat less complex medical problems cost-effectively within the jail.

The George Bailey jail is also the site for food preparation for the entire jail system and provides laundry service for all jails.

Across the parking lot from Bailey is the East Mesa Detention Facility. One of the medium security jails, EMDF typically houses around 500 low-risk inmates.

This jail offers more inmate programs than most others. For example, East Mesa contains the sheriffs print shop, where inmates learn the techniques and some business aspects of the printing trade.

The South Bay Detention Facility is a small, maximum security jail housing about 350 inmates, most of whom are on trial in the South Bay judicial district.

The Descanso Detention facility is a former probation department honor camp, converted to house sheriffs inmates. The jail has a rated capacity of 440, which it rarely exceeds. Inmates there are low-risk prisoners who wish to be in a more rural atmosphere and are willing to work on road and land projects in and around the jail.

Scheduled to open on June 1, 1998, the new San Diego Central Jail is a state of the art full service jail that will provide central processing for male arrestees well into the next century. The new jail will be able to accommodate 260,000 inmates per year and process 50 per hour. Staff is anticipated at 213 deputies, complemented by 260 closed circuit cameras, 13 security staff and about 270 other professional staff. There will be 940 general population beds, four video courtrooms, a 20-bed certified medical treatment center and a 30 bed psychiatric security unit. For the first time in 20 years, non-drug or non-violent misdemeanor arrestees will be booked and held at the new downtown jail.

An inmate, depending on his or her individual classification, can attend GED classes, high school diploma classes, Narcotics Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, anger management or parenting classes and several group therapies.

All are designed to address the problems which may have contributed to the criminal behavior which landed the person in jail.

All the programs cited above are 100% financed from inmate stores and inmate use of the telephone, not by taxpayer money. All profits from telephone service within the cellblocks and the commissary go into the Inmate Welfare Fund.

All facility commanders and one member of the public make up the Inmate Welfare Fund Committee. That committee decides how proceeds from a number of sources within the jail are spent. This fund pays for the instructors, support services, supplies, televisions, equipment and other items that benefit inmates. Presently, the biggest expenditures from the fund are for education and education-related items.

One of the major areas of litigation and expenditure is medical services, accounting for approximately 10% of the entire sheriffs budget - or some $20 million a year.

A staff of four physicians, 85 nurses, 55 licensed vocational nurses and contracted medical groups provide care for those processed through the jail system's seven facilities.

Jails tend to house society's most health-service needy population. Complications of drug abuse, high-risk sexual behaviors, mental illness, tuberculosis and other contagious diseases, compounded by close quarter living, make medical issues a challenge.

Then there are the injuries persons receive prior to being booked into one of the jails.

Any time a suspect is shot or otherwise injured and requires booking, the Sheriffs Department is responsible for providing health care upon entry into the jail system.

That is why so many arresting officers are directed to take their prisoners to the hospital before they are accepted into jail. This is an unpopular but necessary task.

Those in the jail business know food is very important to inmates. In almost every major prison and jail riot in the country, food is a top issue. The sheriff's department ensures nutritious, hot meals are served to the inmates, exceeding state guidelines.

Feeding such a large and diverse group is a science, but food service manager Louise Matthews has introduced a system of food preparation which has served as a model for other large jail systems.

The "quick chill" method is an efficient and effective way to prepare, package, transport and heat food for all sheriffs facilities.

Every day, the staff prepares and delivers more than 8,000 meals for inmates and staff. Not too many restaurants can claim that. No, eating in jail is not like dining at Mr. A’s, but it isn't bad.

Food, health care, facilities and other issues make the detention of arrested persons one of the most costly and litigation-prone functions a government can operate.

Some governmental agencies are looking to private enterprise to help contain those costs and liabilities. In fact, the San Diego Sheriffs Office has been contracting for specialized services for years.

For example, inmates requiring hospitalization are sent to UCSD Hospital where the county, on a contract, pays a set amount much less than neighboring, non-contract hospitals would charge. The jail also contracts with a medical group for specialty physicians, when required.

Now, however, the private business world has entered into the security aspect of inmate care. Companies such as Wackenhut and the Corrections Corporation of America are bidding against sheriffs departments and state prison systems to operate jails and prisons - for profit, of course.

Along with the logistical issues this concept raises, the question is also raised of whether our society wants a for-profit enterprise housing and guarding our pretrial detainees.

Many local and state governments have decided to contract with these private companies. So far, some have saved the government money, some have not. Most have cost about the same over time.

However, each jurisdiction is unique and what doesn't work for some may or may not work for others. The record in California on this point is too skimpy upon which to make a definitive determination.

Bill Flores has been with the San Diego County Sheriffs Departmentfor 23 years, holding the rank of commander the past year A former Vlsta jail captain, Flores is in charge of detention services. Flores has just returned from an intensive one month program near Boston, presented by Harvard College's John F. Kennedy School of government.