Wednesday, March 11, 2015

[Santa Barbara County] Captives of the system


Some local residents have questioned the wisdom of spending millions building and operating a North County Jail. A recent county grand jury report may have ended any debate.
The report was issued early last month, and as any rational human might expect, it was not exactly a glowing endorsement of the county’s jail operations.
The grand jury deals with civil matters. It’s not the indicting-of-criminals type. The volunteer group responds to complaints and tips about potential problems in public agencies, which the panel investigates, discusses, then issues a report.
Santa Barbara County grand juries over the years are definitely not universally loved — especially by the agencies targeted in a report — but they perform a valuable service, by focusing public attention on a policy or operational flaw, or in some cases uncovering malfeasance and corruption.
This latest jury report on the county’s jail situation reiterates facts widely known for many years, that the main jail in Goleta is hopelessly overcrowded, and there are potential procedural issues at the Lompoc Jail.
As always, the grand jury reports stimulate debate, often heated. This time around Lompoc Police Department officials openly dispute the jury’s investigative findings. Agencies targeted in a report have a specified period during which to respond, and it’s a safe bet this will go back and forth like a lightning-fast Ping-Pong match.
The panel also had concerns about equipment at the Santa Maria Sheriff’s Branch Jail, and communications inadequacies regarding budgeting for jail facilities.
One element of the jail operations that are not in dispute, and haven’t been for many years, is the chronic overcrowding at the Main Jail, which was designed and built to accommodate 659 inmates, but has a running daily average of 726.
In the past, such overcrowding has compelled Superior Court judges to order the early release of excess jail population — a scheme that does not sit well with those who believe early release of those convicted of criminal acts is a potential criminal act in and of itself.
The situation got significantly worse in 2011, with the state’s prison realignment scheme, which began emptying overcrowded prisons and sending the less-offensive offenders to already overcrowded county jails.
But the edict that created that prison realignment was among the main catalysts that turned the North County Jail proposal into an actual construction plan.
With a large funding contribution from the state, the North County Jail is on schedule to open in 2018. Not only will the new jail ease at least some of the overcrowding problems at the Main Jail, it will also save the Sheriff’s Department — and therefore the county’s taxpayers — considerable time and money because North County lawbreakers won’t have to be transported down to Goleta.
Still, California’s prison and county jail operations are costing taxpayers a fortune each year, and some of that money would likely be better spent keeping low-level offenders — especially those whose crimes are primarily against themselves — out of jail, and instead diverted to education and rehabilitation programs.
When it costs more to house a state prison inmate for a year than the average Californian earns, you know something is badly out of balance. There have been times in recent years when the state prison system has been California’s only steady growth industry. That is wrong, and should be corrected.
We know it’s a lot to ask of state lawmakers who are accustomed to doing little more than 24/7 campaigning, but California’s approach to crime and punishment needs to be examined, and changed.
February 28, 2015
Lompoc Record
Editorial

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