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We can decide to pay for a new county jail, or we can decide to live with a revolving-door justice system.
Every day in San Joaquin County, Sheriff Steve Moore runs out of jail beds. His hands are cuffed. He follows the law. So every day, he lets criminals go home.
One time, he booked a man on wire theft charges. But he already had more than 1,411 inmates — the capacity at the jail and honor farm — so he released the man. Déjà vu, the same man was arrested the next night for the same crime in another location, but the jail couldn’t keep him. It happened for four straight nights.
We have a crime problem in Tracy and in San Joaquin County, and part of it is related to our chronically overcrowded jail and a court mandate to release inmates early.
People arrested here and throughout the county are taken to the jail in French Camp, and whether they’re convicted, sentenced or awaiting trial, thousands are released early every year — 4,456, in fact, in 2007.
One unintended consequence of this system, which impacts 31 other counties in California, is that jail eventually stops being a deterrent to crime. And for those who spend time behind bars, there’s less time to participate in rehabilitation programs.
We’ve known about this issue for years, of course. When the San Joaquin County Jail was built in 1992, it wasn’t large enough for our population. A half-cent sales tax measure that would have made it larger failed by 300 votes at the ballot box in 1989.
Now we’ve reached a point where we could solve our jail-bed scarcity with $80 million from the state that would pay the lion’s share of the construction of a new jail. The county has submitted an application to add 1,280 jail beds by 2013, and chances are good that the first phase will be ready in four years.
The trouble is, the county has enough money to pay for its share of the construction costs but doesn’t have any money for operating costs — $40 million or $50 million a year.
We can’t operate a jail the way Sheriff Joe Arpaio does in Arizona’s Maricopa County, as county Supervisor Leroy Ornellas reminds us. Arpaio houses inmates in used military tents — with no air conditioning. He also saves taxpayer pennies by taking away coffee and cigarettes and charging inmates for the 90 cents he spends a day to feed them.
In California, the laws governing county jails are much, much stricter, requiring us to spend much, much more money on our jails. That leaves us asking serious questions, making tough choices and — in all likelihood — asking our cities to increase taxes during a time of budget deficits, housing crises and record-high consumer prices.
We need to build and operate a new county jail. The alternative is a county that doesn’t put public safety first.
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