Asleep at the Switch

Given the undiminished overcrowding in the Los Angeles County jail system, Sheriff’s Department complaints that its budget is too lean, the closing of three jails and the failure to open another, some simple questions might have been asked some time ago. One of the biggest: How effective is the safety valve for dealing with locally sentenced criminals--the work-release program?

The first person to pose such questions should have been Sheriff Sherman Block. The county supervisors also could have done some asking, but they didn’t either. Nor did judges or the district attorney’s office. In fact, just about anyone in county government now decrying the condition of the jail system, including City Atty. James Hahn, could have called for an inquiry at any time over the past few years.

Thanks to a Times series, it’s now known that the device releasing pressure on the jails has been a program that allows sentenced criminals to spend their nights at home while doing menial work for public agencies during the day. The work-release program hasn’t been working, and it is so enormous that it has become next to impossible to monitor properly. Some 25,000 convicted criminals were granted work-release status in an 18-month period that began in January 1995 without any review of their criminal histories. Many just skipped out, becoming fugitives, with 1,915 still missing as of December. Now Sheriff’s Department officials find themselves in the ludicrous position of running criminal history checks on people still in the work-release program to determine whether they too might be flight risks or too dangerous to be outside a jail.

What should be done now, beyond the much belated tightening of restrictions that already is underway? First, the work-release problems have made the recently authorized audit of the Sheriff’s Department even more important. That must be completed without delay, and any savings that might accrue should go toward making more jail space available. The opening of the Twin Towers jail downtown, promised for this month, is also crucial.

Judges have sentenced some criminals to county lockups despite prosecutors’ recommendations they be sent to state prisons. But there is no assurance that the L.A. County problem can be relieved by shipping convicts to state prisons. The state’s 145,000-inmate system figures to hit maximum capacity in about three years and is racked by increasing violence. California penal officers have shot to death more riotous inmates over the last 11 years than all other state prison systems combined. And further cutting L.A. County jail terms has to be the last of all options, given that on average convicts serve just 23% of their prescribed sentences now.

The blame for the work-release system being out of control is shared by many, and the buck stops at the desk of Sheriff Block. The crisis of overcrowding has now been forced into the public spotlight, but that should have happened at least two years ago, when the work-release program began to get out of hand.

The voters too bear some blame; generally, they have applauded tough and rigid sentencing standards that have swelled the rolls of the incarcerated, yet they trounced a $700-million statewide bond issue last November that would have built new jails and renovated old ones throughout California. Spotlighting work-release and other jail problems ought to send a message to county officials and the public that sensible solutions are required now.