calendar - The Coast News

MAY 31, 2013
JAILS
CONTINUED FROM A14
inmates. Sworn staff are needed
to operate more medical
clinics and visitations and to
transfer more inmates to and
from other facilities and the
hospital in addition to carrying
out the daily operations at each
facility.
“The greatest impact (of
realignment) has really been
the increased work load,” said
Capt. Billy Duke, referring to
the effects on the East Mesa
Detention Facility, which he
manages.
The Sheriff’s Department
has recently been hiring more
deputies to work at the jail
facilities, and has filled most
available posts.
Currently there are four
open positions for sworn staff
out of nearly 900 positions that
are already filled, according to
Elvin.
However when there are
vacancies available, hiring is a
challenge for the department,
according to Ingrassia.
He said that it is difficult
for the department to find
enough qualified candidates to
pass the testing and background
process.
For every 100 applicants,
only two to three successfully
complete the hiring process.
Furthermore, jail facilities
can be left short-staffed when
several of its deputies are on
leave at the same time, a problem
the department has been
dealing with before realignment,
according to jail captains.
Though all sworn staff
positions at a facility may be
filled, jails can have vacancies
when staff are out for vacations,
training, illness, or medical
issues and when deputies
are out transferring an inmate
to another facility or the hospital
during one shift.
As a result, facilities rely
on staff volunteering for overtime
to meet the minimum
staffing levels set by the
department. When shifts cannot
be filled, facilities operate
below these minimum staffing
levels.
When a facility operates
below minimum staffing levels,
staff mitigates the issue by
reducing operations and
inmate movement at the jail,
according to Ingrassia.
In some cases, fewer
inmates are let out of their cells
and programs and visits are
cancelled.
“Overtime has always
been worked due to vacant post
positions,” said Madsen of
George Bailey Detention
Facility.
In April 2013, George
Bailey filled 96 of its 2,340
shifts with deputies working
overtime, he said. During that
month, the jail was unable to
fill nine deputy shifts,and operated
one to four deputies below
its 39-deputy minimum staffing
level.
He said that when George
Bailey operated below minimum
staffing, “We just made
do.”
He added that security
becomes even more difficult
when the jail is running below
minimum staff levels and
deputies need to be sent out on
unexpected transfers during
the same shift.
“It’s definitely a safety
issue,” said Madsen.
For the 2012-13 fiscal year
so far, Central jail has spent
more than double its overtime
budget to fill all of the sworn
staff shifts necessary to ensure
the safety and security of the
jail’s most problematic
inmates, said Pena.
The increase in overtime
was due in part to a high number
of staff vacancies at the
facility earlier this year as well
as the department’s decision to
increase Central’s minimum
staffing levels during that time,
said Ingrassia.
Pena said that although
the facility has not had to run
under minimum staffing levels
very often, it’s a struggle to fill
all of deputy shifts at Central.
“We don’t have enough
deputies assigned to this facility,”
Pena said.
Elvin, who is responsible
for the operation of the
Detention Services Bureau,
said that the department will
never be able to hit its staffing
numbers just right.
The Sheriff’s Department
makes staffing decisions about
a year-and-a-half in advance
and there is no way of predicting
the future number of staff
that will be on leave or inmate
population exactly.
“You’re never going to be
able to hit your staffing levels
exactly correct because it’s too
fluid of a job,” Elvin said.
“It is more cost effective to
pay overtime than to hire full
time staff to man relief positions
because of the high cost of
retirement and medical benefits,”
explained Ingrassia.
But he added, “Relying
exclusively on overtime to fill
vacancies can lead to situations
in which we have mandatory
overtime and staff burnout due
to working too many consecutive
shifts. Therefore we strive
to have a balance between the
appropriate number of staff
assigned to relief positions and
budgeted overtime.”
The department strives to
provide ample overtime budgets
for each facility, Elvin said.
He also said that he is confident
that department staff
are capable of running deten-
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tion facilities safely even when
operating under minimum
staffing levels.
The Sheriff’s Department
has allocated funds to hire
more sworn and medical staff
in July 2013 to handle new
operations at the new Las
Colinas and East Mesa facilities.
Aside from increasing
staff and constructing new
facilities, the Sheriff’s
Department and court authorities
have utilized some options
to manage the amount of adult
inmates held in San Diego’s
jails as realignment continues
to impact the county.
Aware of the county’s
growing inmate population,
San Diego’s court authorities
are striving now more than ever
to balance being judicious with
jail space while providing
appropriate punishment for
criminals, said Deputy District
Attorney Lisa Rodriguez.
“(Realignment) has certainly
made us more cognizant
that we have to look for alternatives
for the appropriate people,”
she said. “We want to be
sure there’s room (in the jails)
for the people we are afraid of,
not the people we’re mad at.”
The state’s prison realignment
laws included a variety of
alternative custody options,
including split sentences, to
help counties handle the influx
of adult inmates who previously
were held in state prisons.
“There’s more options out
there than we’ve ever had
before,” said Rodriguez.
But there is some hesitation
by the court and attorneys
to utilize these alternatives,
which are new and have not
stood the test of years of effective
implementation, she said.
“There’s nothing really to
guide us,” she said about the
new alternative custody
options.
The County Sheriff’s
Department has been granted
a number of means for moderating
county jail populations as
well.
Starting in January 2012,
San Diego County Sheriff
William Gore decided to allow
department staff to reduce the
sentences of non-realigned
adult inmates with early
release credits authorized by
the state Penal Code and a ruling
by the San Diego Superior
Court.
The court’s ruling on the
1987 lawsuit on overcrowding
in San Diego’s jails authorized
the Sheriff to reduce jail sentences
of non-realigned
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inmates by 10 percent to
reduce inmate overpopulation.
A section of the state’s Penal
Code further authorizes another
10 percent sentence reduction,
which is not to exceed 30
days, for non-realigned
inmates.
These credits are in addi-
It’s tough. I
won’t sugar coat
it. It’s tough, but
we do it.”
Capt.Jim Madsen
George Bailey Detention
Facility
tion to the early release credits
that all inmates are eligible for
under state law. Inmates can
reduce their sentences by up to
half by earning these credits
with good behavior and willingness
to work while incarcerated.
“The sheriff in this county
is committed to keeping dangerous
individuals who have
been given jail time...in custody,”
Elvin said.
He explained that Sheriff
Gore’s decision to utilize sentence
reduction within county
jails was made out of concern
for the high inmate population.
“We’re doing everything
we can to keep the community
safe, but we have these courtordered
caps that we have to
keep in mind,” he said.
Because of that continued
concern, Sheriff Gore does not
plan to discontinue the use of
early releases in the foreseeable
future, Elvin said.
The Sheriff’s Department
is also pursuing paying to house
some adult inmates outside of
the jails at private and staterun
facilities, according to
Elvin.
On May 1, the department
began housing some offenders
who are serving short sentences
for breaking the conditions
of their post release
supervision at a privately run
detention facility.
The Sheriff’s Department
is also in the process of signing
a contract with the state to
allow 50 to 100 qualifying
inmates to serve their sentences
at a state run fire camp.
Yet the American Civil
Liberties Union branch in San
Diego believes that the
Sheriff’s Department could be
doing more to manage the
county’s adult inmate population.
“The Sheriff’s
Department has a lot of flexibility
on who to keep in jail, for
how long,” said ACLU Senior
Policy Advocate Margaret
Dooley-Sammuli.
She said that while the
ACLU has not heard reports of
overcrowding within San Diego
County jails, the county authorities
do have the ability to
reduce the number of inmates
in jail custody.
“The jail population is
managed, it doesn’t happen to
us. There are everyday policy
decisions that are made,” she
said.
Dooley-Sammuli said that
among other things, the
Sheriff’s Department and court
authorities should actively pursue
alternative custody for pretrial
inmates, people who have
been charged of a crime but are
awaiting trial before being convicted
or found innocent, to
minimize the jail populations.
On average there are over
3,000 pretrial inmates who are
held in jail custody each day in
the county, according to data
from the Sheriff’s Department.
“We are looking at that
(pretrial inmates) as an area of
the population that we could
potentially add to GPS monitoring
(in the community),”
said Elvin.
But he added that there
are concerns about pursuing
alternative custody options for
pretrial inmates because these
offenders are considered to be
somewhat of an at-risk popula-
A15
tion.
He explained that pretrial
inmates pose certain risks
because they are new to being
held in custody and can be difficult
to evaluate.
As a result, the Sheriff’s
Department and court authorities
are still looking into the
possibility of monitoring pretrial
inmates outside of jail custody.
On the whole, authorities
from the Sheriff’s Department
said that they believe that the
department is managing the
unprecedented effects of
realignment well, citing its prevention
of floor sleepers and
teamwork between facilities.
“It’s tough. I won’t sugar
coat it. It’s tough, but we do it,”
said Madsen. “We have great
support, great leaders that talk
to our staff and really help our
staff.”
The department is cautiously
optimistic that the number
of non-violent, non-serious,
and non-sex-offender inmates
serving sentences in county
jails, who make up the majority
of realigned inmates, has leveled
off, according to Ingrassia.
Furthermore, the department
sees the new East Mesa
and Las Colinas facilities as an
upcoming release, said Elvin.
But staff is aware that the
inmate population could continue
to rise before the new
facilities are operational about
a year-and-a-half from now.
“If the populations spike
between now and then, we’re
going to have to make some
tough decisions,” said
Ingrassia.
Mary
Purviance
SVP & Manager
mpurviance@sandiegotrust.com
760.479.4344
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