Prisons Need More Funds, Report Says
By Julia Reynolds, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Jan. 3–Monterey County’s jails and prisons have all reached “severe” levels of overcrowding, the Monterey County grand jury has found, a problem that will require significant injections of funds from the state and county to fix.
According to the grand jury report, “the current budget for the Sheriff’s department is inadequate to meet the projected county jail incarceration needs.”
The report, released Tuesday, urges Monterey County supervisors to find funds for additional or new jail facilities; new jail equipment for video and audio surveillance, fingerprint identification and iris scans; higher pay for sheriff’s deputies; and cost of living or housing allowances for deputies.
The jail, designed for 813 inmates, housed 1,146 in July 2006. In some parts of the jail, the grand jury found, there is no video or audio surveillance.
The report recommends that jail staff “enhance communications” with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to speed up identification of foreign, nonresident inmates so some can be deported more quickly to their countries of origin.
The grand jury also said the District Attorney’s Office should do more to expedite trials and sentencing of prisoners to help ease overcrowding, although the report acknowledged that the grand jury did not investigate that office or the Monterey County Superior Court.
The grand jury also did not address vocational and other programs aimed at reducing incarceration or recidivism rates in the jail, focusing instead on adding more capacity.
But for Monterey County’s two state prisons, the report notes that discontinued educational programs are contributing to inmate tensions and violence.
For the fifth year, the grand jury has reported on “severely overcrowded” conditions at the Correctional Training Facility and Salinas Valley State Prison, both in Soledad, where the inmate populations are more than twice the design capacity.
The report recommends that the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation pay higher salaries and housing allowances for correctional officers, along with an increase in funds for vocational and educational programs.
Julia Reynolds can be reached at 648-1187 or jreynolds@montereyherald.com.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Monterey County Herald, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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